The fascination of the inner workings of the illegal drug game has always been part and parcel of the entertainment industry. Films like The French Connection, Scarface and Traffic long ago cemented themselves into the category of “timeless” in documenting the glitz and glamour in addition to the harsh and brutal realities of what goes on behind the scenes before anyone sets eyes on their party favours for the weekend.

Every story needs a bad guy and when it comes to cartels they aren’t exactly in short supply. While there has been occasional landmark shows that have realistically portrayed what it’s like on the front line of the war on drugs / the war on trying to manufacture and SELL them like The Wire in the US and authentic mini series in the vein of the amazing Top Boy from here in the UK. It would not be that much of a stretch to suggest that Breaking Bad was the defining moment where the narcotics narrative was truly taken into the mainstream in a tv show in the sense that people from all walks of life fully submerged themselves into. As gritty and as real as The Wire was, it was, frustratingly, not one of those shows that you would find everyone talking about round the water cooler the next day at work. Breaking Bad changed that and as such, deserves it place in the upper echelons of tv shows that were game changers in their field. The type of show like a Sopranos or a Game Of Thrones that the masses will forever class as “next level.”

As is generally the case. If a show is a resounding success it doesn’t take long for other writers and producers to want in on the act and it has been no surprise at all to see the various drug cartel related shows that have followed Walter White and Jesse Pinkman’s escapades. Most notably the excellent Netflix produced “Narcos” which took things out of America and into Colombia where, for a time, the REAL action took place in cartel land as it followed the story of the most famous drug kingpin of them all, Pablo Escobar. Documenting his dealings with the Colombian authorities, the war America and it’s DEA had waged on him alongside his troubles with the rival Cali cartel. Now having just ended it’s third season andtaking it’s next installment to Mexico where gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas have went on to make the Colombians committed atrocities look tame by comparison.

As had Breaking Bad create the necessary buzz for Narcos to reach it’s target audience, in turn Narcos (and it’s frequency of using subtitles) has now opened the gates for some hidden Spanish speaking gems from Latin America that were most likely never intended for a wider audience in the West. However, through being in the right place at the right time have found themselves with a new breed of viewer desperate to get their cartel fix after feeling the loss of their favourite shows coming to an end. Focusing on both Colombia and Mexico you have the the much more in depth “Escobar : El Patron del Mar” Which was a Colombian telenovela which, clocking in at an unbelievable 74 episodes is only for the hardcore but through the sheer volume of episodes delves way deeper than Narcos was ever possible. Newly added to Netflix has been another Colombian based show “Surviving Escobar” which tells the tale of Escobar’s most infamous sicario, Popeye and his fight for survival after the Meddelin Cartel was broken up. Further north there has been a series of Mexican related cartel shows that have popped up. Most impressively “El Chapo” telling the tale of what is regarded as the modern day Pablo Escobar. Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera. Currently incarcerated in America, Guzman, like Escobar, has an almost Robin Hood mythology to him. Loved by the man in the street but hated by the authorities. Well, the ones that weren’t on his payroll of course. With two seasons filmed so far, this show looks like having a bit of mileage in it before it reaches the point of his capture.

While there are other films and shows dedicated to the head of the Sinalo Cartel, “El Chapo” is the stand out of them all. Special mention however has to go to the also newly released Netflix documentary “The Day I Met EL Chapo” which takes the viewer through the interesting and also downright surreal events of last year when Mexico’s most famous soap opera star, Kate del Castillo along with Sean Penn, under the radar of the DEA ,managed to meet up with the in hiding Guzman while still on the run from the authorities having escaped from the maximum security federal prison, Altiplano.

Ironically however, with all eyes looking towards Colombia and and it’s now modern day equivalent in Mexico. When it comes to Latin America drug cartels one of the most powerful, explosive and exciting “narco” shows to date seemed to fly under the radar. The HBO International Emmy winning Chile release from 2012, Profugos (retitled as Fugitives for the English speaking world) is just that show. With it, Channel 4 created history by making it the first Chilean tv show to appear on a UK network. Profugos follows the fortunes of 4 Chilean underworld figures running (and fighting) for their lives after a drug deal goes disastrously and dangerously wrong. It’s as fast paced as it is violent in this gritty and raw South American tale of double crossing drug cartels, dirty cops and even grubbier politicians with the underlying remnants of post Pinochet Chile woven neatly into the narrative. All the while set to a backdrop of the stunning beauty of the country of Chile be that the harsh and unforgiving Atacama desert, the urban hustle and bustle of the capital, Santiago or the magnificence of the Chilean range of The Andes mountain region.

In a slight nod towards Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Profugos centre’s on a group of hoods (carefully selected on the basis that they barely know each other) while one of the group is actually an undercover policeman. When things soon go wrong it doesn’t take the group long for them to realise that they have a rat in their midst. With this there is understandably trust issues between them yet perversely they know that they need to rely on each other to evade capture from the police on their tail as well as staying alive at the hands of the rival cartel hunting for them.

The four man team consists of the chain smoking Oscar Salamanca, one of the older guard revolutionaries who stood against the brutal General Pinochet regime that ruled the country. Not universally popular with the group, from the offset Salamanca appears to be the appointed boss as is the orders from Kika Ferragut the matriarch of the Ferragut Cartel who has planned the deal from her prison cell. Vicente Ferragut, Son of Kika and freakishly similar to Dave Silva circa Valencia takes his place representing the Cartel. Openly gay, this does not always play well in the homophobic Chilean underworld. Alvaro Parraguez who goes by the name of El Tegui is the undercover police officer who has spent so much of his career under, it appears he can’t come back from it, if he indeed even wants to. So much so that his bosses no longer can confirm if he is to be trusted any more. Last but not least that leaves us with Mario Moreno. The pot bellied, tracksuit top wearing cocaine snorting psychopath with a hidden dark past due to being a collaborator and torturer extraordinaire for Pinochet and now thug and gun for hire mercenary, whichever side. A curious looking man that would look just as suitable as an extra sat in the cafe in Eastenders as he does stood in a Santiago basement gleefully slicing up an opposing cartel member. The type of character that you wouldn’t say no to when running for your life from all sorts of danger but equally someone you’d rather much avoid if possible. Francisco Reyes as Oscar Salamanca
A ruthless quartet, including Tegui who despite being a policeman is not averse to doing what needs done to remain one step ahead, who bring chaos to whatever part of Chile they pass through in their quest to reach the safety of the Argentinian Chilean border. Despite this they are not with our their morals and their empathy which is displayed along the journey in a manner of ways. Well not, Moreno. He’s just a fucking nutcase. If you’re with an ex torturer for a dictator you shouldn’t be holding your breath waiting on them doing something like walking an OAP across the road or holding the door open for someone.

With a potential homage to Breaking Bad (minus a chemistry teacher in baggy underpants) the series begins at breakneck speed with showing the main characters in a high tempo chase, one of them bleeding from a gun shot wound. After setting the scene the rest of the episode goes about going back in time showing the audience how the men in the car arrived at this sticky situation of one close to death with a squad of police cars and vans closing in on them as they question whether they have been double crossed, triple crossed. There must be a mole amongst them but even so which one of them is it and that aside, who is he working for, cops or cartel? Are the police after them or in on the deal with the rival underworld organisation responsible?

While some tv shows are guilty of easing you into them to the point that by the end of episode one you’re left questioning if you’re willing to give it a go in the hope that it will grow on you Profugos episode 1 is the equivalent of shoving an uzi into your face and not affording you any decision in the matter. You’re coming along on the journey with it whether you like it or not! Setting the scene for the explosive end of episode finale which sees the predicament Salamanca, Vicente, El Tegui and Moreno are left in it takes you through how they got there. Traveling from Chile to Bolivia to procure an oil tanker full of liquid cocaine that can’t be detected by sniffer dogs which eventually will be converted into two and a half tonnes of pure coke in what is for the Ferragut Cartel, the deal of a lifetime. With the contents eventually ingeniously transferred into 3,360 bottles of wine all that remains is for the drop to be facilitated with the “European buyers” at Valparaiso docks back in Chile. That however is when things go very, very wrong.

With snipers, including the cold blooded La Rioja an ex paramilitary woman who has killed more people than you’ve had hot dinners this year, assembled on a nearby roof top placed there by by rival cartel leader, Cacho Aguilera and undercover police officers on the ground posing as the buyers it only ever has the ingredients of potential disaster and such is realised with countless dead on the ground amidst sniper fire and explosions. Crucially however, none of the quartet representing the Ferragut family are included in the death toll and somehow manage to escape the docks amidst as frantic chase from the police still standing. This wasn’t part of the plan of Aguilera’s or Marco Oliva the corrupt head of narcotics who is as ruthless as he is dirty. With the crew escaping this sets about a cat and mouse chain of events that stretches from the underworld all the way to the President himself.

Profugos is a masterclass in weaving a tale of death, love, betrayal, mystery, honour and comradeship with more twists and turns than a four thousand mile walk through The Andes. A 13 episode season that drags you along in such an intense fashion as if you were in on the deal with them in the first place. You might need a lie down by the time you’re done with it.

Music & narcotics have went hand in hand since the days of blues singers such as Harlem Hamfats with their partiality towards the occasional jazz cigarette.

The combination of mind altering & creative drugs & musicians has been a marriage that has gifted the world too many timeless classics of songs to even begin to mention. To echo what the legendary comedian Bill Hicks that formed part of his infamous “Relentless” stand up routine "You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they even let Ringo sing a few tunes." Fair point, he wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles according to John Lennon so why hand him the microphone? Drugs, obviously drugs!

Musicians across all genres and of talent have continually drawn inspiration from intoxicants though from The Rolling Stones and their fascination with heroin. to Sting with his life changing trip to the Amazonian jungle finding himself off his tits with the local tribesmen while sampling the ominously titled “Dead Mans Root.” Like Bobby Gillespie, another singer who isn’t a stranger to dabbling, sang, ‘Aint no use complainin that’s the way it’s staying, baby.’ It’s cool Boaby, no one was, is or ever shall be. We love our musicians higher than the International Space Station and it’s terrifying to think just how bland our spotify playlists would be today had they not smoked, sniffed or injected along the way.

Drugs and music had been flirting with each other since the turn of the 1900’s but it was only in the 60’s that they officially tied the knot. Things turning covert to overt faster than Timothy Leary could say “Turn in tune in drop out.” For some, actually a lot of the 60’s bands. Mind expansion was the mood at the time and that was generally found by your Jimi Hendrix’ and Jerry Garcia’s of that era in the form of Lysergic Acid Diethyamide. The powerful hallucinogenic drug. They were in good company. While Jimi was being ever so polite and asking permission to go kiss the sky The Beatles were experimenting with the mind altering drug and giving the world, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Coming, of course from Sgt Peppers. The defining moment, for the band, and the game changer of an album for music in general. For John Lennon to say with a straight face to the world that the song wasn’t anything to do with acid and that it was based on a picture his son Julian had drawn at school was either the biggest miscalculation of the public’s intelligence or was simply a case of Lennon on a day when his trolling game was way strong. To say that the song wasn’t about LSD? Fair enough, to then go and come out with lyrics such as “Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain. Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies. Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers. That grow so incredibly high”? That’s when his argument starts to become as wafer thin as a Rizla.

Since The Days of Blues Singers Such as Harlem HamfatsFor the very fact that LSD was responsible for the change in The Beatles musical direction. It, on principle, should’ve been enough for the drug to be considered as something worthy of going into a time capsule. Sealed and ready for a whole future generation of people to sample, experience and enjoy. Stand out tracks from the decade in a sense that could be linked to LSD were the afore mentioned Jimi Hendrix track “Purple Haze” - one of THE iconic tripping songs from the era of free love and mind expanding drugs. White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. While Hendrix “pulled a Lennon” and tried to claim that his song was nothing to do with drugs and was in fact something that had came to him in a dream. Jefferson Airplane might as well have not even bothered protesting to anyone with lyrics that included. “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small. And the ones that mother gives you. Don’t do anything at all. Go ask Alice when she’s 10 feet tall.” Of course though, I’m sure that these lyrics (like all the other songs from this time) were simply one big coincidence and that Jefferson Airplane would lay the blame at the door of a top heavy with cheese portion of Welsh Rarebit before bed time. During this time it would be easy to associate the drug purely with the kind of bands such as your Beatles and Grateful Dead’s of that moment but to offer an example of how widespread acid was. One of the biggest advocates of opening the doors of perception was Ray Charles. Someone from a genre of music that would be deemed the polar opposite of any of these bands. Charles admitting in an interview that “LSD made the blind man see.” It was unique and a rarity to find a musician being so open about their LSD use as in these days it was deemed career suicide to admit to being a drug abuser.

Fast forward to the late eighties and early nineties and the goalposts had moved significantly. Instead of musicians scared to admit that their songs were influenced and written through and under the spell of LSD we had Manchester band "Northside" penning a tune for the summer of love acid generation with "Shall We Take A Trip." A song that wasn't afraid to nail it's colours to the mast of the good ship LSD!

While the ghost of Hendrix would've likely warned them of the pitfalls of drug references contained inside songs, the lads from Blackley and Moston turned out to play an absolute blinder. Backing up the professional career suicide that the acts from the 60's had feared and shied away from. Shall We Take A Trip was banned by the BBC, denying the song any airplay. With there being no such thing as bad publicity however, the song was to gatecrash the charts in spite of the barriers put up by the corporation. Handing the Mancunians their biggest hit. A song that would prove to be something that would capture the mood of a whole sub culture across the United Kingdom at the time. A composition that when all is said and done is something that will be forever looked back upon as a crucial time piece from the "Madchester" music scene and instantly memorable & recognisable as a Fools Gold by The Stone Roses or Wrote For Luck by The Happy Monday's. With attitudes to drugs changing by the 90's this wasn't by any stretch the last "drug song" ever written but with prices of ecstasy falling to the point that it was becoming more and more affordable to the British working class youth and by default consigning acid to the position of an afterthought when it came to choice of recreational drugs. As a result of this. Northside's pro drug message is still looked back on as the last great song for the acid generation.

To offer an analogy. If comparing drugs to football teams and the stature that they hold in European football today. Acid could be viewed as something in the ballpark of an Aston Vila or a Nottingham Forest. Yes, previous European Cup winners but as time has went on not really teams on the radar of anyone anymore. For drugs such as cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy however, these resemble your Real Madrid’s and Bayern Munich’s. Ever presents no matter which decade you find yourself in. Always relevant, always will be. While acid was a drug that came to prominence during the 60's and was evident through the very fabric of some of that decades music. It is not a drug that has lasted the distance in both recreational and musical senses. When it comes to marijuana it couldn’t be more the polar opposite and if anything despite it’s popularity back in the days of free love and more hair than a day of Hair Bear Bunch re runs on TV it, if anything. Is even more popular today in 2015. The Hair Bear BunchIt would really take someone who’s just returned from Mars to not be aware of how much influence weed has had on music throughout the years. Without any hint of hyperbole it’s an undeniable fact that there is not one musical genre that has not been touched by the 4/20 lifestyle in some way or other. Effortlessly bridging the gap between the varied cultures, traditions and beliefs strewn across music. From Folk to Hip Hop. Jazz to Punk and all the way through Reggae (obvious, I know) to Opera (less obvious.) the one constant that has always been there is Cannabis. With more referenced lyrics across genres than you can blow your bong smoke out at. It’s widely accepted that it has been the one drug prevalent in music more than any other. You’ll find it in the most unlikely of areas like Country Music. Willie Nelson, one of Planet Earth’s biggest tokers, can take the most credit for this. A man who never held back when it came to making the world aware of his passion for the herb. Telling Country Music Television’s “Inside Fame” show. “I used to smoke three, four packs of cigarettes a day. I used to drink as much whiskey and beer as anyone in the world. I would have been dead if it hadn’t been for pot, because when I started smoking pot I quit smoking cigarettes and drinking.” With his tokers anthem “Roll me up and smoke me when I die” as well as providing the inspiration for the Toby Keith ode to Nelson himself “I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again” in addition to his duets with hardened smokers from the world of Hip Hop like Snoop Dogg. Shotgun Willie has done more to bring awareness to weed in Country music than anyone else.

“I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again. My party’s all over before it begins. You can pour me some Old Whiskey River my friend. But I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again”

If Country Music is looked on as an unlikely musical source to find weed influenced material. Then so could Pop. Then again, once more. The Beatles set the tone for this back in the day. And I know it looks like more Beatles bashing from me but it really isn’t my fault that for an extended period of time The Beatles were taking shitloads of drugs. For a time Paul McCartney could hardly go two minutes without getting busted with a bit of smoke on him. “A bit of smoke,” a term to be used loosely when you think of him being pinched by the authorities when trying to bring half a pound of the stuff into Japan in 1980! Some of The Fab Four’s most famous songs were influenced by cannabis. Disagree? Well go listen to songs like “Got to get you into my life” or “ With a little help from my friends and then put that in your bong and smoke it! Their main competitors to the throne of top British boy band at the time, The Rolling Stones matched them every step of the way in the musical and in the taking copious amounts of drug stakes. Keith Richards personally is widely accepted to have taken approximately a 1/4 of all drugs ever manufactured in the world between the 60’s and present day. Richards, years ago telling the world that he thought kids shouldn’t do drugs in what was the biggest show of someone keeping a straight face whilst taking the piss since John Lennon tried to “explain” Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

By comparison in 2015 we can almost weep for the pot smoking "potstars" in pop music of yesteryear. Instead we're left with such "illuminares" like Timberlake, Bieber, One Direction & Miley Cyrus. If anything, an example that Bill Hick's pro drugs music statement is something that could be a topic left slightly open to debate. At the very least that an argument could be raised for to bring dope testing into music in the same way that it is required in sports.

If the apparent squeaky clean world of pop engineered by the Simon Cowell’s of the music industry then the world of Reggae and Jazz would be considered the antithesis. Reggae being a byword for marijuana consumption whilst the Jazz musicians of the early 19th century were unjustly demonized by the American authorities who based their anti drug propaganda campaign on the lifestyles of the artists within the Jazz community. Since the 60’s. Reggae’s Rastafarian artists have endlessly promoted the healing properties of Mary Jane in their lyrics. Decades ago this resulted in an organic campaign to decriminalise weed in their homeland of Jamaica. Epitomised by the track “Legalize It” from the legendary Peter Tosh taken from his 1976 debut album of the same name. It was instantly banned on the Island but years later is looked at as THE tokers anthem. Tosh, one of the founding members of The Wailers along with a certain Robert Nesta Marley carried on the fight to “legalise it” right up to his death in 1987.

On the Bob Marley “One Love Peace” concert in 1978. Tosh lit a joint on stage and entered into a lecture on legalising cannabis. Laying into attending politicians from the government, Michael Manley and Edward Seaga for their failing in this area. Months later when leaving a Kingston dancehall he was grabbed by a number of police officers and suffering from an “he slipped down the stairs” style police beating while in custody. Given the fact that Tosh, for many years, worked with Bob Marley. It’s a frightening thought as to how much ganja the two of them must have went through when writing and performing. Marley himself being the biggest name that Reggae has ever produced. And also the most famous toker the world has ever seen. Decades after his death the iconic images of him puffing on the scariest looking reefer you’ve ever seen is still found on bedroom walls and on t shirts across the world. One of the cast iron rules to smoking marijuana is that you will listen to Bob Marley at some point in your life when you’re stoned. It is unavoidable. Such is the strong link between artist and narcotic. His most famous weed tune “Kaya” written in the 60’s along with Lee Scratch Perry is an ode to the herb from start to finish. Although, that is far from his only tune that has heavy overtones of marijuana advocation.

So widespread the use of the drug was inside Reggae. The English artists have never slipped when it has come to promoting their lifestyle choice either. Most famously, Musical Youth, who gatecrashed the UK singles charts in 1982 and reaching number one with their debut track “Pass The Dutchie.” The song itself, a cover version of two separate songs. “Gimme The Music” by U Brown and “Pass The Kouchie” by Mighty Diamonds. For the cover version, in an attempt to render the track more commercially viable. The song title was amended to “Pass The Dutchie” ( Kouchie being a slang term for hash pipe) and all drug references changed. Musical Youth sang “How does it feel when you got no food” where as the original asked “How does it feel when you got no herb.” It was a beautiful thing to witness a Reggae band almost speaking in code to avoid being banned from the radio while at the same time being cheekily blatant about things. Since the early 80’s the term Dutchie has become a reference in itself in relation to weed rolled inside the wrapper from a Dutch Masters cigar.

While the Rastafarians who form the Reggae alliance automatically get a pass for smoking, singing and promoting the herb. What with it being their religion and all. Spare a thought for the poor downtrodden Jazz singers of the early 1900’s who found themselves targeted by an American government smear campaign purely due to the fact that they enjoyed the occasional puff now and then. While famous Jazz artists like Louis Armstrong were releasing songs such as his weed powered and inspired “Muggles.” A country led by ignorance and racism tried to highlight the dangers of marijuna use. Using the example of Jazz musicians of the pitfalls of smoking the drug. In hysterical public information films. The artists were portrayed as sex addicts prone to irrational crazy behaviour. Through this campaign, anti marijuana activists were able to see a bill passed through congress to criminalise the drug.

The whole of the musical spectrum has links to marijuna. All with it’s own references and stories to tell. Attitudes occasionally have shifted as times have changed. The best example of this being the change in tact from Dr Dre. A rapper who famously told millions of people on the timeless NWA track “Express Yourself”

Only to then release his seminal solo album “The Chronic” which could not have been more weed related and marketed had it been sold complete with a return flight to Amsterdam and a gift voucher for Barney’s Coffeeshop. After his public statement on “Express Yourself” about avoiding “weed or sess” it would’ve been easy for his pride to get in the way of then performing a 180 degree flip and suddenly become Mr Marijuana. Instead he pressed on and gave the world the masterpiece that “The Chronic” was. In doing so, launching the rap career of “Snoop Doggy Dogg” into the stratosphere ahead of his debut album. Doggystyle the following year. Snoop himself going on to become a modern day Bob Marley of the Hip Hop game. Synonymous with weed as much as he is for the great music that he has made over the years.

With over half a century of music and drugs being irretrievably linked together it would be fair to assume that this is a status quo that will forever be a fixture in our lives. We probably should all do ten Hail Mary Janes as we praise god that it is.

"You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them" Bill Hicks

By now, the story of how Acid House and ecstasy was introduced to Great Britain at the end of the 80’s has been told more times than The Hungry Caterpillar has been to kids at bed time by their parents.

The tale of how the hedonistic spirit of Ibiza was smuggled back in a few holiday makers suitcases and brought back to London and planned for mass consumption. Legends like Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Paul Oakenfold have well deservedly etched their names into UK house music folklore. Returning from their life changing trips to the white isle they set about changing the face of London’s club scene. And then beyond

Word spread north of the Watford gap about this new and original brand of hedonistic madness quicker than you could say ‘What’s your name? Where you from? What you had?.’ Once the northerners got their hands on the things though that’s when the monster that was Acid House was truly unleashed. Now don’t shoot the messenger here but the impression has always been that when it comes to clubbing. Those from the north are stereotypically much more unreserved and willing to push themselves to the absolute limits than our cousins down south. With that, when they got their hands on the combination of house music and this new revolutionary drug called ecstasy. They, as could've so easily been predicted, made the most of it. Quite the understatement, that!

What originated inside sweaty and rammed full London clubs like Shoom and Spectrum we then saw equally packed sweatbox’s further up the map such as Liverpool’s Quadrant Park, Shelley’s in Stoke and the world renowned clobbers cathedral that was Fac 51, The Hacienda. Thing’s were happening outside during this period, on much larger scale. Hand in hand with the north’s club scene was the outdoor illegal party operations being carried out by party “entrepreneurs” like Manchester’s Donnelly brothers. Anthony & Christopher, who made the national news by staging “Joy” in Rochdale and “Live The Dream” in Blackburn. By putting on Joy they, against all the odds had thousands turn out at Stand Lees Farm despite the protests from Rochdale Council and well known local politician Cyril Smith. An ex member of parliament since posthumously outed as a part of a high level paedophile ring. Not exactly someone who possessed the moral high ground over preventing the working class British youth from partying all night long each weekend.

Also in Blackburn there was the much more gritty guerrilla style low budget parties put on by Tommy Smith and Tony Creft. For a time Blackburn city centre was busier at two in the morning than it was at two in the afternoon due to these two. Hundreds of cars converging all making sure they were going to be part of the convoy to the as yet unknown destination. Of which you didn’t really know until the sun came out before you found out which warehouse you had been dancing in since the middle of the night. If you were lucky you’d find that it wasn’t an abattoir or worse! Much like Joy and Live The Dream, the Blackburn warehouse parties were the stuff of legend. Thousands dancing inside a warehouse in the middle of an industrial estate while the rest of the “normal” people across the region were tucked up safe in bed. An example of the depth of the northern spirit, what happened when a regional attitude met a life changing moment like Acid House and MDMA. They of course accepted it with open arms.

What about Scotland though? Despite what some people might wish for either side of the border, we’re still all stuck together on this island. With that we were having our defining moments involving these mdma filled pills (and to you young un’s reading this? They really WERE mdma “filled” ) to a backdrop of tunes like Lil Louis ‘French Kiss” and Jomanda’s “Make My Body Rock.” Do you really think that up here in Scotland we were just passing the time eating haggis, playing golf and tossing the caber?! Pre internet, no twitter or facebook, no message boards. Illegal all night parties, hardly being in with a remote chance of having an advert in the national or local press. There was inevitably a trickle down effect. London to the north then spreading from the north to, well, further north! It inevitably found its way.

Speaking obviously, from a Scot’s perspective I can say that there were elements of the Scottish people who never stood a fucking chance once Acid House made it’s way across the border. As a nation of people we like to think of ourselves as friendly and outgoing a country that you’ll find anywhere else on planet earth . Throw some white doves and electronic music into the mix and for a while at least, it led to some of the most memorable parties staged throughout the whole of the UK. From agricultural fields to conference centres right through to international airports (no, really) thousands of Scots were congregating, dancing from dusk to dawn while still well under the radar of the Scottish tabloids which by default equalled pretty much the entire country as a whole.

For a period of time before the rest of the country woke up to what was going on right under their noses, going to these 8pm - 8am all night parties felt like you were part of some secret society, well, secret as up to 20 thousand clued up party people could possibly be! Being someone privileged enough to have witnessed the transcendence of the Scottish house music scene from small underground events to the large scale behemoths of overnight parties. Through these large scale gatherings of like minded hedonistic souls a subculture sprung up overnight and one that, like England. Would go on to impact the whole of the nation in some way or other.

This piece is dedicated to some of Scotland’s most defining events that spawned from the early days of Acid House back at the end of the 80's which paved the way to a scene that is still going strong today.

It would be nothing more than pure sacrilege were I to start this doffing of caps to the legendary all night parties in Scotland if I started with anything other than Technodrome. An event that, at the time, was the largest of its kind in Europe let alone Scotland. Staged at the Dalvennan Shooting Ground, Kirkmichael Ayrshire. This was the watershed moment for Scotland when things went from small clubs to the great outdoors. On the largest of scales, legally. Alongside some of the up and coming techno local DJ's such as Marc Smith the English invasion of "vinyl deck technicians" who had already began making their names in the Acid House scene like Fabio, Grooverider, Dave Angel & Mickey Finn took Scotland by storm. A near 20'000 crowd willing recipients.

An unbelievable turn out at the time for a scene that was still in its early days in the country but slowly starting to grow. With PA's from crowd pleasers including N. Joi & Shades Of Rhythm on a cold October night in a mud bath that made your average Glastonbury weekend look dryer than a nuns lady part. Not that anyone even cared or no doubt for some, even noticed. Over the initial years of the Scottish party scene growing I witnessed and experienced many things but the crowd that night was something that was never, ever replicated. When N.Joi launched into their biggest of tunes "Anthem" there were genuine and well founded concerns that the energy from the crowd was going to take the roof off the big tent there and then.

Despite Technodrome being the first of large scale legal allnight parties in Scotland and the inaugural, in a scene that was only going become bigger. It was to be a party that would never be beaten for the size of sheer numbers that attended in addition to the innocent, non judging and raw attitude everyone brought with them that night when walking through the entrance. As the scene grew and grew, Technodrome gradually became the stuff of legend with those who were there that night wearing that fact like a badge of honour. In some ways the benchmark for what was to follow while never quite being surpassed. Proving that they were there at the ground level of the Scottish house music party scene. Those that weren't there? Of course, they ALSO said they were in attendance that night! Still spoken about in hushed tones to this day by the old guard. It was a night that was to define and pave the way forward for a fresh subculture without ever allowing itself to be bettered. It was what can only be described as Scotland’s “Woodstock” when it came to Acid House.

Only 6 days had passed from the last record being spun at Technodrome and with barely enough time for heads to fully clear. Things went back indoors again all be it on a slightly smaller scale than the week before in Ayrshire when thousands converged on Edinburgh's Ingliston conference centre for the Scottish event debut of Coventry's legendary club "The Eclipse." Signaling the end of their UK summer tour, the people behind Britain's first all night rave club venue in England’s Midlands, brought the curtain down on the tour by finishing with their first ever visit to Scotland.

With the mildly patronising named "Highlander" event they took Edinburgh by storm bringing their own unique brand of madness to a crowd still trying to come to terms with the levels of euphoria they'd experienced less than a week before at Technodrome. Frankly, “patronising” was tolerable if it involved putting on the calibration of DJ's with the talents of American, Joey Beltram and Londoner, Carl Cox in addition to resident Eclipse MC, the complete maniac that was Man Parris. The Eclipse were never to return to Scotland on such a grand scale but for what they brought to Edinburgh that night it was a case of “job done” in helping the Scottish house scene grow.

With the longer nights kicking in it was the chance for Scotland to, for the first time, experience outdoor parties in the summer sun as opposed to the the initial outdoor parties like Technodrome had been held. Enter Earthquaker. Staged in the west of Scotland in Ayrshire across the sprawling fields of Dalleagles Farm. The, by now clued up Scots were treated to the delights of American DJ’s Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson alongside mainstays of the British House scene including Leicester’s DJ SS, London’s Kenny Ken and Scottish favourites Marc Smith and Michael Kilkie on a scorching hot June night.

Accompanied by PA’s from Shut Up And Dance and Dream Frequency it was a night where everything seemed to click into place. The setting, the music and the crowd. By now elements of the Scottish media were starting to suss out what was going on as was evident by the appearance of an STV news crew who rolled up with their cameras and proceeded to interview some revellers slap bang in the middle of the party. Unfortunately, myself included which led to an ill advised appearance on “Scotland Today’s” Monday night news bulletin of which, still a teenager at the time caused me more problems than was worth.

With a mic and TV camera stuck in front of me midway through the night it seemed like a good idea at the time to tell the reporter what I thought of the all night party scene sweeping the country. It wasn’t that good an idea as far as ideas go! Sadly, regardless of the 9,000 crowd that attended that night it wasn't enough to make the organisers numbers work and by the next week the company had went into receivership. It has never been forgotten though how important their swan song was however with regards to reinforcing the party scene in the most northern part of Great Britain.

Out of all the party organisers that laid on events throughout Scotland during the early stages of the Scottish party scene. Newcastle based Rezerection, along with Scotland’s own Streetrave from the west of the country, were the people that invested the most money not to mention blood, sweat and tears into the scene. When the Geordies at Rez gave the growing army of party people The Castle it truly was a case of them laying down a marker and showing that they weren’t fucking about when it came to making their intentions known.

This wasn’t their first all nighter by any means but it was undoubtedly the one where their brand came together in the eyes of the Scottish public. It cemented their reputation on a night that proved that they were here for the long haul. Having already put on nights at the same Edinburgh venue as Highlander with mixed success it was apparent that they had listened to the feedback from their initial foray in the country and assembled a mix of dj’s that was to suit the tastes of Scottish ravers.

Their earlier debut, despite being mightily impressive visually and audibly was not to the publics (at the time) less than discerning and still primitive tastes and was met with mixed reviews. This was due to the fact that they had followed the tried and tested formula that promoters like Fantazia and Dreamscape had already deployed down south which was to fill the bill mainly with wall to wall English jungle Dj’s. Something which, musically went the way of the lead balloon. My everlasting memories of that debut all nighter was of thousands of ravers full of ecstasy but mostly complaining all night long about the tunes that were being spun.

With Scotland coming on board moments after England they simply were’t ready for this type of music and in truth they never quite took to the genre apart from a small minority. The Castle changed that and all was instantly forgiven. With an unbelievable stage constructed as, well, a castle. The crowd went absolutely ballistic to PA’s like Bizarre Inc and Love Decade which were safe pairs of hands to hold the Scottish raver in. The DJ’s? There was the obligatory plethora of top drawer spinners with the highlights being Andy Carroll from Quadrant Park and a special extended 3 deck set from Carl Cox taking everyone up to 8am.

Despite it being a scary 23 years ago now, my stick out memory, like it was only yesterday, isn’t the mind-blowing set from Coxy but the moment Andy Carroll dropped Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” to the unsuspecting thousands of party goer’s. Whether he knew it or not this was a risky strategy in Scotland but after an initial few moments of confused looks between the crowd they embraced his originality shown and soon were dancing in unison with the biggest of grins that I witnessed throughout the night.

For years afterwards “The Rez” kept coming back repeatedly to the capital city but the feeling was that the night of The Castle was the moment that Rezerection gave its greatest gift to the Scottish scene. Soon the brand grew into the mainstream monster that it did and with that the magic was lost forever in a sea of glow sticks, white boiler suits, undesirables and badly cut drugs. By bringing the The Castle to the country of castles though no one can deny how much of a mark those Geordies made that night.

The last day of 1992 brought the unique, outlandish and without question THE most surreal party venue for not just an all night rave in Scotland but the entire United Kingdom, possibly Europe. Eurodance, presented by the Streetrave team of ex Motherwell FC casuals Ricky Magowan and James Mackay didn't take place in a farmers field, nor a shooting range or major conference and exhibition centre. This legendary pair pulled off the seemingly unthinkable by hosting their new years eve bash inside one of Scotland's main international airports?! No one came remotely close to consistently and persistently giving the Scottish scene more than the Streetrave crew did so it was fitting that it was these same lads who with their gallus and innovative attitudes to bringing bigger and bolder and ruffer and tuffer parties to the nation were the same people who topped anything ever to be put on previously and up to present day for originality. The feeling that night handing over your ticket and entering Glasgow Prestwick International Airport was one of anticipation that you were about to attend something truly special, which was undoubtedly the case.

That you, along with the rest of the 5’000 crowd were about to experience something that would would be remembered long after the scene had either evolved or moved on. That this simply wasn't going to be just another by the numbers 8pm to 8am night of hedonistic madness that had already been going on over the country up until then. It felt that you were participating in a piece of history. And it’s due to this that it will forever take it’s place as one of the best, memorable and important house parties ever held in Ecosse. Nowhere in the terminal was off limits. For example. My own personal story from that night was that I spent half of it dancing on top of a British Airways check in desk that on any other given day would've been the scene of scores of passengers handing over their passports to some sweet smelling and overdone with make up BA check in assistant handing over their passengers boarding passes. The irony of the offices of Her Majesty’s customs being just around the corner while 5’000 ravers were going completely mental was such a beautiful thing to witness. Compared to the line ups of the other parties included in this piece, the bill wasn’t exactly that stellar but on a night like this inside a unique venue like an international airport, it simply didn’t matter.

To complain about the lack of A list DJ’s would've been the most obvious case of missing the point. Between Streetrave favorites like Jon Mancini and Boney and respected English DJ’s like Trevor Fung and Simon “Baseline” Smith the crowd never skipped a beat or dipped until the last tune was spun at 7.55am. To this day Ricky Magowan and James “Jamsy” Mackay are still doing their thing and still as important to the scene in Scotland. Years back they wisely changed the company name from Streetrave to Colours due to the by then altered view of the word “rave.” Continuing to bring the best DJ’s from over the world to their nights at Glasgow’s Arches club and their larger scale events at the Braehead Arena across the city. They could've retired after that initial night at the airport and their legendary status would've been secured due to the cojones they showed in giving their customers such a night when seeing in the new year of 1992. The Scottish public young and old salute them for sticking at it!

Team captain, Alexanko, going before the camera to demand that his president resign with immediate effect - ‘President Nunez has deceived us as people and humiliated us as players. In conclusion, although this request is usually the preserve of the club, the squad suggest the immediate resignation of the president.”

This historic press conference taking place during what would go on to be clubs worst season since 1941.

All of this wasn’t too clever for Nunez as was falling on re election year and given the very public and very ironic vote of no confidence from the first team squad added to the worst performance of a Barcelona team in almost half a century, he didn’t appear to have any chance of receiving enough votes for another term as head honcho at the club. Nunez needed a marquee signing or big name manager to replace Aragones who was predictably on his way. May 1988 and El Flaco was back at the Camp Nou and in the exact same situation as it was back in 1973. The club was in the shit, needed some direction, needed galvanised. They got a lot more, as it turned out.

In an instant revolution, upon Cruyff taking over. 15 players went out - 12 came in, and Barca’s prodigal son got to work. First came the process of transferring his ideas and philosophies over to a foreign set of player unused to the concept of playing football the Cruyff way. In early July, 88 during a team meeting where the new coach would spell out what was expected for the new season ahead. Eusebio, defensive midfielder signed by Cruyff during the pre season -

‘He got a blackboard and drew three defenders, four midfielders, two out and out wingers, and a centre forward. We looked at each other and said ‘what the hell is this?!’ This was the era of 442 or 352. We couldn’t believe how many attackers were in the team, and how few defenders.’ Cruyff single handedly, as well as near instantly, introduced a new way of playing football in Spain. 343 was officially a thing. Still, paying more than a slice of homage towards Michels’ system . Cruyff’s Barca was that little more daring, more assured. A tweak on an idea from years ago and a completely alternative era of football that could and would work in modern day in 1988 if placed in the hands of the correct group of players. The ever so cantankerous and belligerent Cruyff when found having to defend his leftfield 343 formation to the Spanish press and public through such an unorthodox formation -

‘If you have four men defending two strikers, you only have six against eight in the middle of the field: there’s no way you can win that battle. We had to put a defender further forward. I was criticised for playing three at the back but that’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. What we needed was to fill the middle of the pitch with players where we needed it the most. I much prefer to win 5-4 than 1-0.’

Indeed, Johan Cruyff didn’t really care too much for defending, you see. Then again, with players like Guardiola, Laudrup, Stoichkov, Figo and Romario putting in appearances over Cruyff’s term for La Blaugrana. You wouldn’t though would you? The Barca coach famously answering goalkeeper, Andoni Zubizaretta’s request for guidance with a shrug on how the Barcelona defence should deal with set pieces from their opponents. ‘How should I know?’ Replied Cruyff. ‘You’re more interested in how to defend a corner than me, sort it yourselves.’

Despite being viewed as unorthodox in some quarters, the key to the iconic Dutchman’s formation began and ended with ball retention. A philosophy that is as relevant today at the Camp Nou as it was back in 1988 when Cruyff was putting his stamp on the side.

‘It’s a basic concept: When you dominate the ball, you move well,’ he stated. ‘You have what the opposition don’t and therefore they can’t score. The person that moves decides where the ball goes, and if you move well, you can change opponents pressure into your advantage. The ball goes where you want it. Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is.’The Camp Nou 1988Another thing that he found hard, initially at least, was finding the ideal players to suit the system. It highlights how much faith he had in total football that when finding it difficult to use the system with the players he had he didn’t knee jerk and change formation to suit the players he had. Instead, he had the script for Barca’s famous La Masia academy ripped up and restructured with a fresh canvas and a heavy focus on all age groups playing the same formation and employing the same tactics. In next to no time the sporting ethos of the club had changed. The under 8’s were being taught the same as the first team squad. A kind of tactical harmony spread through the different age groups of the clubs youth sides and ultimately when it was time to step up from the B side, the player would already know the system like the back of their hand. It wasn’t just the formation and tactics that would change around La Masia. Incredibly for a team like Barca as we have known them over recent times. Prior to Cruyff taking over as coach, Youth players who were offered contracts were not offered their deal specifically through the ability that they had shown during their trials but instead was based on physicality. Players who at a young age showed signs that they would grow as tall as 5’9, based on their existing height and age, would be given a deal, anyone considered small for their age didn’t stand a chance. Cruyff didn’t need tall well built machines. Just technically gifted players who were comfortable with the ball.

That one act alone from Cruyff would change the face of world football years later when the fruits of the La Masia graduates started to bear gifts. Notably the trio of Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi who went on to be a staple part of what many consider as the best football team the world has ever seen. Pep Guardiola’s serial Champions League and La Liga winning Barca side, all three of them, 5’7! It’s a frightening thought though that if Johan Cruyff hadn’t changed policy on the height of players who would be selected for the first team all three would possibly not have made the grade as youth players. La Masia tweaked, Cruyff got down to business of making Barca great again. He’d saved them in the 70’s as a player and here he was, in the 80’s about to save them again. He almost lost the chance before it all came together for him and the squad. With no league titles to show for his first 2 seasons in charge. The Barca board passed a vote of no confidence in him continuing as manager. This needed President Nunez to sign off on, instead, he gave Cruyff another season. The rest quite literally is history. He won 4 La Liga titles in a row, Barca, despite their sheer size of a footballing institution, had only won two titles in the previous two decades up until his arrival, and one of them he was there as a player! He created a squad of players that were so supremely talented, full of stellar names in the game like Hristo Stoitchkov, Michael Laudrup, Guardiola and Romario, they were soon given the title “Cruyff’s Dream Team” with the media paying homage to America’s Olympic basketball side of Magic Johnson, Micheal Jordan, Larry Bird and so on. It would not be the only basketball team that Barca would be likened to, both Pep Guardiola and current coach, Luis Enrique’s sides have often been compared in some quarters to The Harlem Globetrotters such has been the level of technical entertainment they’ve given the world.

It was the 91/92 season where the monicker Dream Team was given to the side. 4 years into Cruyff’s return as manager and everything started to fall into place. La Ligas were being won, suitable graduates from La Masia were coming through, and the clubs obsession of winning The European Cup was realised. After Real Madrid losing the unlikeliest of final matches of the season against minnows, Tenerife (Something that would inexplicably happen the following season, again on the last day) which gifted the league title to Barca. La Blaugrana were then off to Wembley for their next attempt at finally winning Europes biggest cup competition against Italian champions, Sampdoria. A Ronald Koeman trademark free kick, with the clubs into extra time, was enough to bring the much vaunted, big ears, to Catalonia for the first time. And through the legacy that Cruyff had put in place, it would not be the last time the trophy would be paraded at the Camp Nou.

Eventually, as it generally does for managers of the biggest clubs on the continent, things turned sour. It is only a big name with a just as big reputation as a John Cruyff who could survive as many years as 8 at a top level club like a Barcelona but even El Flaco could not be bombproof to the politics of such an institution and the effects that a few sticky seasons could bring. The cantankerous, impossible personality that Cruyff had, up against a megalomaniac of a President in Nunez was never going to carry on indefinitely without it ending in tears at some point. After the persistent rumours that had been building where Barca had already lined up Sir Bobby Robson as Cruyff’s replacement, things came to a head when Vice President, Joan Gaspart met with the Dutchman the day before the final home game of the 95/96 season. With Cruyff and Gaspart coming to blows after the vice chairman being branded a Judus by his manager. Cruyff was ordered to leave the stadium with immediate effect and a threat that the police would be called if he never. There was no way back from that. It would be his last day as, not just FC Barcelona manager, but with anyone. Club or country.

The Barca Cules and Socio’s were as sick as the parrots who sit in the trees behind the main stand of the Camp Nou but Cruyff hadn’t just won 11 trophies for them in what was the most successful they’d ever been in such a short period. His importance and influence ran far deeper than just the silverware. He’d altered the fabric of the club forever with his renovation of La Masia and the attitude to development and footballing philosiphies it now had moving forward. In less than a decade, he’d overhauled both Ajax and Barca youth academies while winning trophies, domestic and European for both first teams. He fell out with countless players along the way, driving some into the eager hands of rival teams. His formula for success however was, while evidently anything but foolproof, had brought lots of success and in the wider sense had sown the seeds for something much greater that Barcelona would only discover years later. His stamp has always been there at the club since he left in 1996, with a touch of history repeating itself through a Cruyff disciple from the dream team days. Like Cruyff had learned from Rinus Michels in the 60’s and 70’s, Pep Guardiola, midfield maestro of the team from the 90’s, was a willing student of Cruyff’s school of soccer and despite an evolvement of ideologies towards how his team should play, Guardiola is the man who has taken the torch passed to him and become an even more legendary coach than his mentor, Cruyff. Regardless of winning 14 cups and league titles inside a ridiculous 4 seasons, following an initial one season as B coach, “Pep” was comfortable in recognising who was behind how Barcelona as a team functioned.

Studying under Cruyff, Pep has since went on to become one of the true great managers of world soccer. Winning an obscene amount of silverware inside 4 years at the Camp Nou he has since enhanced his reputation by winning titles with Bayern Munich and this season makes his debut in England with Manchester City. Some of his innovative ideas and philosophies he has introduced has reeked of Johan Cruyff in what has clearly been an example of the apple not falling far from the tree. Regardless of what Guardiola achieves in the game. The concept of total football will forever be linked with what Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff, the sorcerer and the apprentice, introduced to football over the 60’s and 70’s, their ideals on how football could and should be played and the legacies they left behind and the riches they provided.

When ex Ajax player, Rinus Michels took over in 1965 as coach at the old De Meer Stadion, Amsterdam.

Unbeknown to anyone at the time, it was the appointment that would go on to shape and reinvent the modern game of football. And no one could ever have seen it coming, apart from a few in the know Dutchmen. Michels taking over at Ajax was hardly headline news. The Amsterdam club were not the famous and much loved club the world knows them as today during this era and were, according to some pundits, relegation fodder for the new Eridivsie season. The new coach hadn’t read that particular script however. Michels instead, came to work bringing outlandish plans of innovative and a sexy new brand of football to the club from the capital city, as well as backing it up with silverware and making Ajax champions of Europe.

The concept of total football is not something that began the day Michels took over at Ajax, although he does retain a first hand link to where it all originated from. The philosophy of how a football team in such a way that could be likened to total football traces back to Englishman, Jack Reynolds. The Manc, who coached the club from Amsterdam on 3 separate occasions beginning in 1915 with his last stint coming to an end in 1947, is known to have experimented with a style of play that is primarily based on spatial awareness at all times and ball possesion. While doing so, one of his players was Rinus Michels. Michels would not be alone, and in fact would find himself in the company of some real footballing coaching heavyweights such as Cruyff and Guardiola, in taking to the strategy and using it to base how his team should play when he moved onto coaching after retirement.

Rinus Michels

It wasn’t just Jack Reynolds of Ajax who had tried such a fresh and daring system against what was, in football, the tried and tested of formations. Real Madrid, Santos, Ferenc Puskas’ “marvelous Magyars.” all dabbled with playing in this way. And Burnley too! It was, when put in the hands of the Dutch in the 60’s however that the concept would ignite and become a permanent strategy and belief rather than just some footballing fad like snoods and nasal strips. This technical advancement in how to train and utilise players coming in the same era where in England it was the polar opposite. While Michels was putting into place his vision to revolutionise modern football. The English Director of coaching, Charles Hughes, was preaching his own particular strategy on how to play the game with his “POMO” system. Through his studies, based on 100 games across all age groups, he concluded that most goals had been scored after 3 passes or fewer. From his analysis, he stressed the importance of particular areas of thee pitch where the majority of goals had been scored from. He coined these areas the POMO - Positions Of Maximum Opportunity and that these were the areas that if the ball was played in enough times the chances of scoring would be higher. Critics have, through the years openly criticised his system, accusing it of producing a generation of players lacking in basic technical skills as well as having no understanding in playing to different strategies. England were preaching what was effectively the long ball system while the Dutch were quietly going about changing the game in ways that would have people questioning their own gods!

What really IS “total football” though?

It’s a term that today we’ll see a Martyn Tyler use to describe what was a great free flowing, fast moving “team” goal while he’s sat up in the gantry. Those two words have become almost a byword for what now, is simply an exceptional passage of play between team mates. The reality is that total football is so much more than scoring spectacular goals. It’s a religious experience for the player involved, it’s a commitment as a footballer where no matter what new tattoo or Bugatti you’re going to buy after the game is on your mind. You think of nothing more than “the system” during those 90 minutes. Harshly? Possibly, but not every football player will have the ability to play in such a disciplined set up that the whole philosophy expects. One that dictates that any outfield player has to be comfortable playing in any position on the pitch apart from goalkeeper. The system’s success lived or died on the ability of the players to switch positions multiple times during a game. The demands placed on the player were high in both a physical as well as on a technical level. Jack Reynolds of AjaxThe Dutch players however, took to the philosophy like an Amsterdam tourist to The Bulldog Coffee Shop and it wasn’t long before the tactics started to pay off with Europe beginning to sit up and take notice of the unfashionable Amsterdam side . A year after Michels had taken over they put down a marker as far as the European stage was concerned with a 5-1 defeat of Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in a European Cup tie at the De Meer on a fog filled December 7th 1966. It wouldn’t be until 1971 before Ajax would lift their first European Cup but once they did they couldn’t be stopped and the cat was eventually out of the bag. For a club side to lift the worlds most vaulted footballing domestic trophy while deploying this unusual formation and approach, it could no longer be ignored. One thing that can also not be ignored, or understated, by now is the fact that Michels had a player called Johan Cruyff at his disposal from the moment he took over at De Meer right up until he left to take the reins at Barcelona.

With Cruyff playing for Michels for 6 years. This was a repeat of the Rinus Michels playing under Jack Reynolds scenario where the torch on the philosophy of how to play the beautiful game would be passed on as Michels had originally received it from Reynolds, Together, Michels and Cruyff won multiple domestic league and KNVB cup’s and created history by winning the European Cup at Wembley, 2-0 against Greek side, Panathinaikos. That season, the Amsterdam team had taken Europe by storm and admiring glances had been projected Ajax’s way from most of Europe’s big clubs as the tournament progressed, the majority in the direction of Cruyff and his coach.

Michels left soon after the Wembley final for Catalonia to take up residence at the sleeping giant of Spanish football, the Camp Nou. Cruyff stayed in Amsterdam for two more seasons and helped pull of the unthinkable of three consecutive European Cup wins for Ajax. The 1972 win marking what at the time, was the finest hour for the concept of total football, well hour and a half if you’re being pedantic. With Ajax running out 2-0 winners against Inter Milan in Rotterdam. The Dutch side boasting the outrageous talents of Johan Neeskins, Arie Haan and Cruyff himself it was the quintessential performance of football from another mother. The Dutch newspaper, possibly biased, called it “the death of cattenaccio.” It was taken as a statement of good over evil when it came to how to approach what way to win a football match. Do you go negative like Inter did and lose or do you go the Ajax way and …?Ajax Inter Milan 1972 European Cup FinalWhile Cruyff stayed that one last season in Amsterdam, Michels was simply doing that whole managing a Spanish club thing where you’re constantly trying to hang onto your job at every turn. The Dutch coach needed those first couple of seasons to fully bed in on how a Barcelona player would think and play out on the pitch, as was the demands of Michels. It was only when Cruyff arrived at the Camp Nou that the coaches plan for Fc Barcelona could fully be realised. And how. With Cruyff slotting into his new club like he’d played for them all his life due to his previous with Michels he, as the worlds most expensive player having been signed for 6 million Guilders (Approx $2 million) , led Barca to their first La Liga title in 14 years. This wasn’t just a case of a team winning a trophy at sport. This was a symbol of regional pride from the Catalan part of Spain, and the ever aware Cruyff knew the importance of this.El Flaco (The skinny one) had already won the hearts of the Catalonians before even kicking a ball through refusing to sign for Real Madrid, who Ajax had sold him to. Cruyff threatened to retire from the game if he was prevented from signing for La Blaugrana. Various ex team mates of Cruyff from that first season he joined, agree on as the moment that their side eventually woke up, when Cruyff rejoined his old Ajax coach. With the coaching of Michels and Cruyff out on the pitch it was the catalyst of an overhaul of attitude within the Catalonian club who, admittedly, had up til then always appeared to prefer to play the victim card against the dominance from Madrid.

Barcelona as a football club, never mind a city, amidst their title winning celebrations, did not know it at the time but during the first half of the decade. The blueprint for the sporting behemoth of the worldwide brand we know them as today, was in the early stages of manufacturing. Courtesy of their dual dutch imports. Soon more would follow. The gifted, Johan Neeskins joined his international team mate, Cruyff, the season after that historic league title. He wouldn’t have the privilege of playing in the Barca team for his Dutch compatriot, Michels. Characteristically, Barca’s Dutch coach. Rather than bask in the adulation from the Barca Socio’s and Cules after snatching La Liga from their hated rivals Real Madrid. Michels instead, left the Spanish champions to take over his country in the imminent 1974 World Cup in West Germany.

Barca were devastated but purely having had him as coach they were evidently in a better position by the time he left compared to when he arrived in the Catalan capital. If you leave a top Spanish team as manager and they’re the ones more upset over the parting of way then regardless of what decade you’re in, you’ve done an answering above the call of duty’esque job! As for the Netherlands and the 74 campaign? In, what was the first time that a global audience could collectively watch total football in live matches. The Oranje eased their way through to the final with a style of football that, at times, appeared to completely bamboozle their opposition. The absolute epitome of the word, “bamboozle” coming through Johan Cruyff gifting the world the “Cruyff Turn” after his iconic trick to beat Swedish defender Jan Olsson in the 0-0 draw. They call football The Beautiful Game. If that is true then the Cruyff turn is Christ the Redeemer in a symbolic sense although given his footballing history, The Sagrada Familia would probably be more appropriate. The 'Cruyff Turn'
In the end though, Michels’ players got as far as the final only to lose 2-1 to hosts West Germany. All appeared to go to plan for the Dutch after they went 1-0 up after 2 minutes without the Germans having even had a touch of the ball. At 1-0 the Netherlands at times, toyed with their opponents and it is due to this that even today, commentators look back on the first appearance a Dutch side would make in a World Cup Final feeling that it was the arrogance of the Dutch that lost them the final rather than the dangerous West German side including Vogts, Beckenbauer and Gert Muller that they were up against.

Ironically, it took for the World Cup to officially cement the name “Total Football” due to Cruyff and all in the summer of 74 and by the time it was cemented the concept of it was being forgotten about. Football is all about cycles at times. Good players and teams will come and go. Someone else takes their place and so it continues. Total Football had given a good account of itself in that respect. 3 European cups for an unfancied Dutch side, a first La Liga to a giant of a club in Barcelona and a World cup final defeat was enough to place the whole Total Football “experiment” into the folklore of football. Ajax won three European Cup finals in a row. Bayern Munich then went on and did the same for the next three seasons. The NEXT again 6 seasons would see England’s clubs winning the trophy. The time of Ajax + Total Football = European Cup wins appeared to be consigned to history. The time of Total Football at an end along with it.

Whether things are pre ordained for us all or not. There was hope bordering on expectation that having first saved FC Barcelona as a player in 1973, Cruyff would return as coach some day. As it turned out, it took a few planets to align for it to happen but things would never be the same again for Barca in the best of ways when them and El Flaco finally reunited once again.

Cruyff, a devoted disciple of Michels and an undoubted model student given his stellar performances on the pitch. One of the worlds greatest players of all time had soaked up all that Michels, his coach over two club sides as well as International sides, had schooled him in. With Cruyff being, well, Cruyff! His headstrong and assured ways saw him making some additional tweaks, implementing his own beliefs and interpretations on how this system could work for his sides with football having moved on a decade.

Hanging up his boots in 1984 while with Ajax’s bitter rivals, Feyenoord, in what was classic Cruyff trolling! He moved into management the next season with, well, of course, Ajax! Going with how he wished to proceed with he set Ajax out in a 3 - 4 - 3 formation encompassing 3 mobile central defenders. The forth defender pushed so far forward that he was in the post code OF a midfielder so was classed as one. 2 controlling midfielders, 1 second striker, 2 wingers and a centre forward. In his short time as manager in Amsterdam he restructured the complete youth system at the club with all year groups playing the same formation, his one. The kids would at times be instructed to train and play on concrete, the reasoning behind this for cruyff was that no one would want to fall so therefore their balance would subconsciously improve. Gifted attackers would occasionally be played in defence to give them a greater appreciation of how defenders think during a game and how to be one step ahead of them.

Success followed with 2 KNVB cup wins and one European Cup Winners Cup through a Marco Van Basten goal in the 1-0 win against Lokomotiv Leipzig in Athens. Other notable players in the Ajax first 11 included, Frank Rijkaard, Jan Wouters, and Denis Bergkamp. Cruyff had followed in his master, Rinus Michels footsteps by delivering a European trophy to Ajax and the city of Amsterdam. Poetically, almost. Cruyff was to keep on with this aping of his tutor by winning Ajax a European trophy before pissing off to Barcelona to manage! That was just the one planet aligning, matters had to be altered on the Barca side. In dramatic circumstances, La Blaugrana were happy to provide.

Following a Spanish authorities investigation into tax evasion at the Nou Camp. Barca president, Luis Nunez was felt to have thrown his players under the bus by leaving the unpaid tax bill to be paid by them, not the club. This brought about the unprecedented move by the Barca first team, in addition to manager, Luis Aragones in what is known as the “Hesperia Mutiny,” named after the hotel that the first team squad had gathered, holding a press conference hitting out at Nunez.

As expected, when you start getting towards the business end of European competition the standard of team you face will only go up levels and such was the case when they were drawn with Hajduk Split.

The Croatians defeated 2-0 in the first leg through goals from Jim Mcinally and John Clark who had evidently began to get the taste for scoring in Europe. Despite the two goal cushion, the tie was most definitely not over. United would be going into what would be the most partizan, intimidating and hostile environment they would have sampled since their fateful European Cup semi final appearance at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome and adding to that. Due to the games coming thick and fast for such a small base of players with “squad rotation” nothing more than a pipe dream for a side with the resources of Dundee United. It was starting to take its toll on the players. United headed to Split without what most Arabs would consider part of the crown jewels of their first choice starting 11. Paul Hegarty, Maurice Malpas and Paul Sturrock all missing out.

In what was a backs to the wall at times 90 minutes where Hajduk hit the woodwork numerous times in addition to having an attempt scrambled off the line. United were through to the quarter finals after a 0-0 draw. Making it through in the most uncomfortable of ways and on another day may well have not. The Times match report summed the hosts performance up with “An astonishing incompetence of Hadjuk split in front of goal.” However and whichever way they got there, the fact remained. Dundee united were through to yet another quarter final.

And then along came Meester Venables, Lineker, Hughes and the self proclaimed “more than a club” team from Spain.

In the build up to the draw for the last eight. United manager, Jim McLean was quoted in the media as saying ‘We have had the luck so far to meet sides just like us. Full of industry, rather than full of class.’ To offer up a Scottish expression to counter this. McLean should’ve kept his pus shut because in world football what team is more synonymous with “full of class” than FC Barcelona?! There were admittedly, a few tasty looking sides left in the competition by this point including Inter Milan, the Diego Maradona’s Napoli and United’s old foes Borussia Monchengladbach but as the football gods would decide. It would be Barca once more visiting Tannadice.

Before the two Barca ties however, the games were coming at an alarming rate for United domestically. Following their 11 game unbeaten run at the start of the league campaign things had fallen away to an extent but by the turn of the year 6 straight league wins had put them right back into the mix and by the time Barca rolled up into Dundee. The Scottish team found themselves in the quarter finals of the Uefa Cup with the same said for the Scottish FA Cup while a mere 2 points from the top of the Premier League.

In a match that had captured the whole of Scotland’s imagination as well as most of Europe it took all of 108 seconds for United to take the lead against the Spanish superstars through a cross cum shot from Kevin Gallacher where even to this day not one single fuck has ever been given if the youngest player on the pitch and one who would go on to win the English Premiership with Blackburn Rovers, meant it or not by any Dundee United Supporter!

The reaction behind the Zubizaretta’s goal from Tannadice’s traditional “shed end” says more than I as a writer could ever put into words so I’m not even going to bother trying!

The remaining 88 minutes were of the nerve racking variety for the Scottish club and none more so than when Gary Linekar missed what was to a striker of such quality a practical open goal where his composure in front of goal looked anything but the calibre of striker who had won the World Cup golden boot the year before in Mexico. The match ended 1-0 and by now, no one could deny that the Scots now had a chance but it was only that, a chance. They had not bossed the first leg by any means, something they were used to doing on home turf and that was reflected in Mclean’s almost pessimistic outlook after the match.

‘I’m not sure we can do it in the second leg. We tired in the second half but I’m proud of the way the boys kept going’

Obviously, a wily old fox like Jim Mclean was using some reverse psychology with such choice of words but considering the opposition his team were up against there was still a degree of pragmatism in his message.

Sandwiched in between the first and second leg, United were to face near humiliation in the Scottish Cup against lower division Forfar in what would highlight why football is such an unpredictable and beautiful sport, with a last minute Iain Ferguson penalty securing a 2-2 draw. Providing something the stretched United side feared the most, an extra game in the cup replay. A team who had just beaten FC Barcelona finding themselves tested by a team from a town more famous for mince birdies than it is for any football reasons! Before the replay however, there was the small matter of a trip to the Camp Nou.

In what had been not even a half full stadium it had been largely an even affair with neither side troubling the other until right on half time Barca’s Caldere scored with a wicked deflection that sent the ball past United Keeper Billy Thompson which saw the two teams even on 1-1 at half time. With everything to play for, both Barcelona and Dundee United emerged for the second 45 minutes in a second half that saw the Scottish side do anything but defend their 1-1 scoreline and hope for penalties as underdogs tend to do in the later stages of a tournament. If anything, they had the better of the second half with Sturrock, Gallacher and Iain Ferguson all passing up chances that the Barca socios with one hand on their white handkerchiefs. Still, it remained 1-1 on aggregate and it appeared that Barca had weathered the storm and with 5 minutes remaining it looked like it was going to take a further 30 minutes of extra time to separate the sides, at least.

Well, that was until United striker Paul Sturrock was cynically brought down outside the box and the resulting free kick was put in and John Clark (him again) brushed Mark Hughes aside, bulleting a header off the underside of the bar and into the net to level the score on the night while giving United the much vaunted away goal which with the game almost over had Terry Venables’ side facing elimination.

‘The thing is, I always remember that Paul Hegarty had predicted to me seconds before that I would score. I said I didn’t know about that because Hughes was always very strong in the air, on this occasion though I managed to bully him a little. To be fair, I think my size had something to do with that’ the forever more than svelte Clark said years afterwards while looking back on that famous night in Barcelona.

1-1 was enough to see the Scots through on the night but well, they had a 100% record against the Catalans to protect so with that they went for the jugular of their deflated and by now defeated opponents. On 89 minutes Iain Ferguson scored with a header and delivered what could only be described as the price tag on the cake after John Clark’s equaliser had placed the cherry on top of it. Ferguson’s winner producing a sporting applause from the Barca support in amongst the occasional white handkerchiefs waved towards the presidential box at Nunez.

In what had been a fairytale finish the United players could hardly believe what had happened as they danced about the Nou Camp turf. They were in the semi finals of the UEFA Cup. And El Tel was deep in the mierda. “Hell Tell” Screamed The Daily Mirror in an adorable play on words only a tabloid could ever think of (sic)

In his press conference Venables said that he believed out of the 4 teams left in the competition, IFK Goteborg, Borussia Monchengladbach & Swarovski Tirol being the others, he now made Dundee United favourites to go on and lift the trophy. This may have sounded like damage limitation from an under pressure manager however it wouldn’t be long before other important figures in football would be singing the team from Dundee’s praises such as Brian Clough. During the same heated press conference following Barca’s exit, Venables refused to be drawn on the fact that this had been the final straw for the majority of fans after the best part of two seasons of failure and as a result wanted himself and Mark Hughes to leave the club.

Barca were out and free to concentrate on their fight against Real Madrid for the league title. The Catalans having already went out of the Copa Del Rey at the last 16 stage. Dundee United on the other hand still had two competitions that they were fighting for in both the UEFA cup and the Scottish cup. Borussia Munchengladbach were taken care of 2-0 on aggregate in the semi final which included the Scots inflicting Borussia's first defeat on home soil in European competition for the first time since 1970 during a period that stretched 55 matches. This 2-0 win away in Germany coming only days after a monumental, intense and energy sapping 3-2 win in the Scottish cup semi final against city rivals Dundee.

By the climax of the season. This “corner shop” club as it’s manager had previously described it as had played 64 matches since the start of the season, a side that from the beginning of March and up to the seasons climax would play the equivalent of 22 matches inside 78 days and now had it’s most crucial of three matches left. Two legs of the Uefa Cup final and tucked away in between those two games, an FA Cup Final for good measure. In the most cruelest of ways the team from Scotland who had given so much throughout the season was to quite literally run out of steam at the worst possible time. The players had taken themselves to the brink during a run that on the final game would be their 67th match of the season. First came the 1-0 defeat against IFK Goteborg in Sweden in the first leg of the UEFA Cup Final. Then and within the space of 5 days was the heartbreak at Hampden Park against St Mirren in a 1-0 defeat in the Scottish Cup Final when all signs pointed towards a win against the heavy underdogs from Paisley. Goteborg delivered the final nail in the coffin of a season that promised so much but delivered nothing in a silverware sense with a 1-1 draw in the second leg of the UEFA Cup Final.

There were many reasons to be proud that night despite defeat in such a major competition. The fact that such an unfancied team could get so far and shock the whole of Europe as they did it, in a similar way that we have seen today with Leicester City who have upset the natural order of how football is “supposed” to work. The fact that even through defeat, the Dundee United support stayed to applaud the Swedes on their lap of honour around the pitch. Something that was recognised by FIFA who created the FIFA Fair Play award off the back of the reaction from the Scottish fans that evening. Meanwhile in Barcelona, La Blaugrana had lost La Liga by 1 point to Real Madrid and, like Dundee United, finished the season with nothing to show their efforts.

The Scots lost two major cup finals inside 5 days. Fc Barcelona lost the league title through the most narrow of margins, and Meester Venables lost his job.

As memorable as the season 86/87 will always be for both sets of supporters, nobody really won in the end. Sometimes the beautiful game can be anything but beautiful.

When Terry Venables breezed into Barcelona in 1984 with his cheeky cockney smile to take over at the world renowned cathedral of dreams, the Camp Nou.

Replacing the legendary, chain smoking Argentinian world cup winning coach, Cesar Luis Menotti in the process it had not been roundly opined as the marquee signing that the Catalonian public felt befitted a football team of FC Barcelona’s standing in the world game. Initially it was what could be considered the furthest thing from “El Tel,” which the English tabloids had instantly nicknamed him upon securing the job in sunnier climes and was simply, Terry who?

It was not just the Barca socios and cules who were left with skepticism over the appointment of the unknown English manager by the unpredictable, belligerent and ruthless President, Josep Nunez. The Spanish media, understandably had major doubts over the new coach who would have the weight of the regions public heaped upon his shoulders, but also, both in private and public, la blaugrana players themselves. Barca’s talented but often outspoken German midfielder Bernd Schuster had his say where he asked the Spanish press where Nunez had "got this guy from," musing if Venables had been plucked from one of the Majorcan beaches that were full of drunken Englishmen?

Back in these days and before the time of homegrown coaches such as Pep Guardiola and current gaffer, Luis Enrique. It wasn’t just an expectation that someone taking charge of one of the worlds truly great clubs would come correct with a CV that boasted of not only coaching the biggest and best international and domestic sides but having also coached them to success. It wasn’t an expectation, it was a demand, it was, they felt, their right. Menotti had coached Argentina to World Cup success before taking over at Barcelona. In what is as polar opposite as it can get. Venables came from, Queens Park Rangers.

Since taking over as president in 1978, Nunez had not seen the club win La Liga, the sides previous league title coming as far back as 10 years earlier. This was the task handed to the Englishman upon taking the reins at a club riddled with in fighting. No pressure! The natives, already underwhelmed by the announcement of Venables were left positively restless by this coinciding with Diego Maradona leaving the club for Napoli. It would be an understatement to suggest that the clubs fans weren’t too happy with losing who was widely regarded as one of the best players in the world and a player who was on his way to joining the elite of footballs folklore beside such superstars such as Pele and Cruyff. When a beaming Nunez presented to the press, Maradona’s replacement, one Stevie Archibald. It was seen as nothing more than a cost cutting exercise, especially when it had initially appeared that the club would be signing the very capable and La Liga savvy Mexican, Hugo Sanchez. A player who would eventually move across town to the Bernabeu the next season and become a Real Madrid great with more than 160 goals scored for the club.

“Este es el hombre.” This is the man, Nunez proudly announced to the world, to rid Barca of the unholy spectre of Maradona. Standing there beside the non plussed looking Scottish striker who would later admit that he hadn’t actually wanted to sign for Barcelona but had been pushed into the deal by Tottenham Hotspur because they needed the money from the transfer.

Against this backdrop it almost looked like the cockney coach had been set up to fail. Venables hadn’t, it seemed, read the same script as everyone else however. In what could’ve been a scenario that almost certainly had his position as Barca coach on a “shoogly peg” before it had even begun, his first league match of the 84/85 season saw the team start the campaign with a small trip to Madrid to play their most bitter of rivals, Los Blancos. Later that night la Blaugrana flew back to El Prat airport with a 3-0 win inside their duty free bags. To a man, every player made a point of walking up the aisle of the plane to where Venables was sat to shake his hand with the general consensus being that the new tactics he was trying to drill into the side “might be on to something,"

And they were. Barcelona won their first league title for a decade. Finishing 10 points ahead of nearest rivals Atletico Madrid and a whopping 17 points ahead of Atleti's cross town rivals, Real. Hugo Sanchez finishing the season winning the award for top scorer, the “Pichici” on 19 goals with Archibald bagging a very respectable 15 goals coming third behind the Mexican and Real Madrid’s Argentinian striker Jorge Valdano. Venables was no longer, Terry Who and as the season had progressed and the Catalonian public starting to see that this coach wasn’t just a patsy for President Nunez. The Englishman was soon affectionately christened “Meester Venables.”

Much like a band who completely take the world by storm with their debut album only to then have to face up to writing the often referenced “difficult second album.” Meester Venables faced the difficult second season and it was as difficult as it could get and soon the success of his first season in La Liga was almost forgotten about as Barca conceded their title to Real Madrid. Los Blancos finishing 11 points ahead of second placed Barca. The knife of that season being twisted by the loss of the European Cup Final in the less than neutral venue of Seville where Barcelona faced Romanian champions Steaua Bucharest in what is widely recognised as the worst European Cup Final ever seen, closely followed by Marseille against Red Star Belgrade. Both finals being decided on penalty kicks. Spanish football is not an environment to accept things based on reputation alone and it had been thought that regardless of his title win the season before. Venables would be gone before the start of the 86/87 season began. Instead, Nunez backed his coach by sanctioning the signings of the Atletico Bilbao goalkeeper Andoni Zubizaretta in addition to two strikers from the English first division, Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes from Tottenham and Manchester United respectively.

Lineker was an instant success including his headline grabbing hat trick in El Clasico at the Nou Camp, Hughes? Yeah not so much. The man from Leicester finished the season with 20 league goals which was a more than decent return for a player abroad although the irony would not have been lost on Venables that Hugo Sanchez (him again) would score a ridiculous, for La Liga at the time, 34 goals for Real Madrid in a season where Real would snatch the title back from Barca by, one single point. If Barca missing out on the league title was a major blow to president Nunez and down throughout the club it was their failure in European competition that would, at the end of the season, be looked upon as the defining moment on whether El Tel would stay on for a fourth season or not. With these being the days where Europe’s elite competition, The European Cup, only had each respective nations league winners representing. This saw Barca taking their place in Uefa’s second knockout competition. The Uefa Cup. La Blaugrana had negotiated their way through to the quarter finals of the competition and by that point found themselves outright favourites to reach the final and bring the trophy back to Catalonia. A small provincial side from Scotland had other ideas on this however.

Dundee United should not have been an unknown quantity to Barca. They’d already made their bones in the arena of European competition over consecutive years leading up to the quarter final tie against Barcelona. This in fact being the 4th time inside 6 seasons that they had reached the last eight of a European tournament and this specific quarter final only coming 3 years after the heartbreak of losing out on an historic place in the European Cup Final after crashing out against AS Roma amidst suspicious circumstances and missing out on the chance to play Liverpool in the final in a battle of Britain. A team who had proved to be one who under the colossus of a manager in Jim McLean had not been one to stand back and respect the reputations of their opponents. Previous seasons in the same competition had seen so called superior opposition in the mould of AS Monaco, Borussia Monchengladbach, PSV Eindhoven and Werder Bremen all dispensed of. The ties involving Borussia and the team from the French Principality both having 5 goals taken off them in the one match by the team from Tannadice St in consecutive rounds, the match in Monaco making headlines across Europe with United winning there 5-2. There was also the small detail that had to be factored in on this intriguing tie. Barcelona and Dundee United already had previous with each other. Back in 1966 the sides met in what was Dundee United’s first ever dip into the waters of European football with United winning both legs and knocking the Spaniards out only for the Scots to be trolled by the UEFA gods by then landing the European behemoth Juventus in the next round in a tie that saw “The Old Lady” of Italian football go through 3-1 on aggregate.

Regardless of all of this. The reality of it all was that this was very much a case of household names such as Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes who were used to plying their trade in front of crowds of 100,000 up against players such as John Holt who, as the story goes, almost left Dundee for lowly Forfar because “They were offering him a car to go with his salary” and because of this, only the staunchest of Arabs would have ever predicted United coming out on top over the two legs and them reaching only their second European semi final prior to both sides doing battle in the first leg at a capacity 21,322 crowd at Tannadice Park on March 4th.

It had been and would only go onto get even more, a punishing season for United where their small squad would find themselves fighting on three fronts for the Scottish Premier League, the Scottish Cup and the UEFA Cup. Before the UEFA Cup run had began in earnest they had started domestic duties in impressive fashion going the first 11 matches in the league unbeaten with a memorable 3-2 win against Rangers at Ibrox after being 2-0 down only to come back including 2 goals from a 20 year old Kevin Gallacher being the highlight of this run. The side was still largely the same team who had won the league in the 82/83 season with only striker Davie Dodds and defender Richard Gough being the notable departures from the backbone of the side. United replacing Dodds with the £175,000 signing from Rangers, Iain Ferguson who with 11 goals in his first 9 matches was appearing to be a more than adequate replacement.

Ironically, despite Ferguson’s impressive start to his career in Tangerine he would be missing for the first three rounds of the European competition due to his signing coming after the Uefa deadline. So, sans their new striker, the Terrors faced French side Lens in their first round of the Uefa Cup. United going down 1-0 in France and with the absence of an away goal. It was left hanging on a knife edge with the very real possibility that they might go out of Europe at the first attempt for the first time since the 78/79 season. After a tense first half and the teams going in at half time 0-0, second half goals from Ralph Milne and Tommy Coyne were enough to take them through 2-1 on aggregate.

The next round of the tournament paired the Scottish team with Romanians Universitatae Craiova. A side who had knocked Galatasaray out in the previous round and had shown they were indeed no mugs when they rattled the United crossbar after 90 seconds of the first leg in Dundee from an Adrian Popescu strike. It would take United 3 second half goals, two from Redford and one from John Clark who was deputising for Scottish international Paul Hegarty who was missing out on an incredible 52nd consecutive European appearance in a United shirt. The second leg was a mere formality after the 3-0 win and a 1-0 defeat out in Romania did nothing to dampen the spirits of the Scottish side.

When Charlie Ahearn, along with co creator Fab 5 Freddy, in the early 80’s started work on writing,

producing and directing their vision of bringing an insight into the graffiti art & Hip Hop subculture of New York City they couldn’t have began to imagine just what an important and inspirational piece of work they were about to gift to the world.

Their plan to give a global audience the opportunity to witness first hand the revolutionary movement that was happening inside The Bronx was to prove to be the catalyst for a stratospheric explosion across the culture. Outside of that specific area of New York the rest of the world knew very little (if at all) of the craft of graffiti artists, rappers & break dancers, then came Wild Style.

All too often when a so called secret society is exposed to the mainstream and the cat is let out of the bag the community is normally never the same again and forever tainted. These kind of reveals generally come over as heavily commercialized and watered down for the general public to digest. There’s always exceptions to the rule in life however, Wild Style was just that.

As much as Ahearn was making a film to show the masses just what was in the air at this moment in time in the still very much early days Hip Hop and graffiti communities, he was making it on his own terms. By doing so capturing a truly magical, all planets aligning moment in time when New York’s subculture was at it’s most raw, primitive and energetic and allowing the watching audience to see it for exactly that.

A time where it was unimaginable that Hip Hop would go on to change the face of the musical landscape while becoming a billion dollar business in the process. Set in early 80’s derelict South Bronx, Wild Style, a film which has more of a documentary feel to it than actual film, the loosely based plot tells the story of the young mythical graffiti artist, Zoro. An early days Banksy of sorts with the touch of an angel when holding a spray can in his hand, tagging the NY subway trains at night while ducking and diving from the law in addition to trying to find the path to turning his sublime talent for spray painting into something more lucrative.

The part of Zoro, played by “Lee” George Quinones, himself already a respected figure in The Bronx graffiti art scene. Along with Quinones the cast is littered with non actors with Ahearn instead choosing to cast what was almost the entire Bronx community of rappers, dancers and spray painters to play themselves.

As a result, acting in the conventional and academic sense is dangerously at a minimum but if you’re watching Wild Style and you find yourself critisizing the acting in front of you then you’ve already missed the point in the exercise.

Put simply it was the first film to dedicate itself to the inner workings of the Hip Hop and graffiti art world at the ground level and more than 30 years later it is still the most important and vital to the scene. The three decades plus that have passed since it’s release has seen the soundtrack alone persistently sampled by big hitters such as Nas, Tribe Called Quest, Big Daddy Kane, Beastie Boys and Jurassic 5 to offer up some examples.

With a stellar assortment of practically every rapper, B boy, emcee, and spray painter that mattered in the early days of the South Bronx scene, the lack of real plot can leave Wild Style appearing as nothing other than a mechanism to piece together a collection of scenes showcasing this urban musical and artistic subculture at work, and with the talents on show that really isn’t a bad thing

Quinones joined by fellow South Bronx graffiti artist, the legend, Zephyr to represent the spray painting community, it’s the hip hop and breakdancing contingent which takes Wild Style to a whole new level. With seminal figures of the scene at the time such as Cold Crush Brothers, Rocksteady Crew, Busy Bee, Grandmixer DST Double Trouble, Fantastic Mc’s and Grandmaster Flash all playing themselves the cast is the equivalent of a browse through the family tree of Hip Hop royalty.

When you can sit back and watch the epic Mc Battle between Busy Bee and Rodney Cee live at The Dixie you can’t help but give Wild Style a pass when it comes to it’s lack of real dialogue and acting of any high standard. That’s not to suggest that it is lacking completely in an acting sense, that’s where Fab 5 Freddy comes in.

His character “Phade” steals the scene any time he appears on screen and is without a doubt one of the coolest and charismatic characters ever committed to celluloid. Jeff Bridge’s “Dude” from The Big Lebowski generally gets everyone’s vote as the coolest film character in movie history. The reason for this is that there simply hasn't been enough people who have seen Phade at his best!

I’m not even sure if it’s possible for something to appear as beautiful while symmetrically gritty but Wild Style just about pulls it off. From the opening credits, showing you a montage of artistically spray painted subway trains riding through the bleak and run down South Bronx accompanied by DJ Grand Wizard’s – Subway Theme, you know you’re being sucked into a world that you won’t want to depart until Ahearn says it’s ok to do so.

His work is a piece of genius that effortlessly encapsulates the basic and primitive experimental values that Hip Hop had at it’s inception, and those same values it misses today . As “real” a film you’ll ever see. Yes there was a plot but due to most of the cast not even being actors, Charlie Ahearn allowed most shots to be left open for improvisation.

Even the scene where Zoro and the journalist he’s heading to a party with are accosted by a stick up crew, for this part of the film, Ahearn used three members from an actual South Bronx gang to perform the stick up, even allowing one of them to use his own shot gun for the scene! But that’s what makes it, it’s realness and honesty. This isn’t some after the event cash in when Hip Hop has already reached success as a form of music.

This is an almost fly on the wall look at a musical and artistic scene that had already had its foundations laid and was now figuring out what to do with itself. Knowing that the main character Zoro was actually a real life graffiti art legend, knowing that when seeing a rap battle in the basketball court between Cold Crush Brothers v Fantastic 5 you were watching two sets of rappers who actually DID have a hated rivalry between each other and that they weren’t just playing up for the cameras.

Watching Fab 5 Freddy practically playing himself on screen due to him already being in real life a rap concert promoter, known spray painter and quintessential key figure inside the community who had his fingers in many of Hip Hop’s pies.

Everywhere the camera takes you, you’re left with the impression that all of this would be going on at that exact moment in time regardless if there was a camera around or not. During those days in the early eighties South Bronx residents were having the time of their fucking lives right under most people’s noses and thanks to Ahearn we all got an invite to the (bloc) party.

With so many iconic and memorable images it will be a movie that will forever keep a tight grip onto its cult following while adding new recruits as the years pass.

The unforgettable and iconic images like Grandmaster Flash, mixing it up in the kitchen, a scene that Kanye West & Common recreated for the Dave Chappelle show. Double Trouble sitting on the steps rapping back and forward in a scene that was subsequently re-enacted in a Sprite commercial starring Nas and AZ decades later. The previously mentioned rap battle between Cold Crush & Fantastic, a scene also parodied by Sprite in a commercial starring Missy Elliot and NBA heavyweights Kobe Bryant & Tim Duncan.

Any scene at The Dixie which looked like the equivalent of an indoors block party any-time the cameras walked through the door. Inside the place, a case of Heineken beer, weed, Kangol hats as far as the eye can see and free styling ( the first time ever seen in a film ) up on stage with a menagerie of New York’s finest rappers.

Wild Style isn’t old skool, in the scheme of things it’s more like fucking kindergarten. The graffiti art / Hip Hop documentary that officially isn’t even a documentary that went on to become the inspiration and launchpad for a generation of rappers and graffiti artists. It isn’t just a film, it’s way more than that in the sense of what way it paved for those influenced by it.

Film? It should be looked upon more as a historical time piece where a musical and cultural movement in its infancy was captured on film at the exact right place at the exact right time and for those reasons, is a work of art that should be eternally cherished in the annals of Hip Hop’s story.

If you like Hip Hop then I won’t insult you by telling you to watch it, most of you will have done so already. If you’re not into Hip Hop? I would still urge you to watch it if you want to be see just how the biggest selling genre of music arrived at where it is today.

As the Scottish champions Dundee United, emerged from the Tannadice Park tunnel on a balmy April night,

the players in tangerine could’ve been forgiven for questioning if this was all just some dream. The like that can only be achieved by eating a Red Leicester, Edam & Mature Cheddar triple cheese omelette before bed time. Outlandish isn’t even the word for the fact that they were walking onto the pitch alongside Serie A champions AS Roma. A side that boasted players of stature such as Brazilians, Falcao and Toninho Cerezo as well as homegrown talents in Italian world cup winners Bruno Conte and Francesco Graziani and a team that was rumoured at the time to have swaggered up to the United stadium the day before and question if this was in fact the training ground that they had arrived at.

Having won the Scottish Premier League for the first time in their history the season before, this was the Dundee club’s debut in UEFA’s leading club competition. Having made their bones across a number of seasons in both the Fairs Cup & the updated UEFA cup competitons they had already taken a few notable scalps to at least register themselves on the European football radar. Two seasons before, both AS Monaco and Borussia Monchengladbach had been turfed out of the Uefa cup during United’s march to the quarter finals. The following season it would be PSV Eindhoven and a Werder Bremen side, including Rudi Voeller who would be swept aside with the Scots reaching the quarter finals once more.

Both those long runs the previous two seasons had stood Dundee United in good stead for what would be their greatest and toughest challenge yet on the European stage. Even then, when they started out in their first round tie against Maltese team Hamrun Spartans who they dispensed 6-0 on aggregate, they couldn’t have dared to dream that it would be a journey that would take them to the brink of the final with the champions of Italy standing between them and a place in the final. Next up came a match up against tricky Belgians, Standard Liege. After a 0-0 draw in Liege, the second leg saw Standard having their pants taken completely down 4-0 by a Ralph Milne (Rip) inspired United inside a packed Tannadice. With confidence growing in legendary Scots manager Jim McLean’s team. They saw off Austrians, Rapid Vienna in the quarter finals by a more narrower margin, going through 2-2 on the away goals rule.

Which now brought them to As Roma. This march to the semi final, and without question the biggest matches of the United players lives, had went ridiculously smooth, too smooth if anything and by being paired against the champions of the notoriously unforgiving Serie A, they were about to find out how tough and cruel European football could be. It wasn’t just a case of going into what would be undoubtedly an extremely difficult to negotiate two legged tie. Unbeknown to them at that moment when they kicked off on that evening of the 11th April was that they were walking right into a surreal tale of drug accusations, the worst kind of intimidation, violence and bribery. A story that was to rumble on for decades after the actual two matches.

In true Dundee United fashion during that era of swashbuckling attacking with safe as houses defending, the Dundee side not one for standing by and admiring reputations of their so called betters, beat Roma that night 2-0 in a win that could’ve and most certainly should have been a lot heavier for their visitors. three or four would not have flattered the champions of Scotland, however the two second half goals from Davie Dodds and Derek Stark was, it was considered something that would give United a fighting chance of progressing through to the Final. Ironically, in Rome at the same Stadio Olimpico where, the second leg of the European cup semi final against the Giallorossi would be played at.

After the final whistle however, things kind of went a bit mental after that. During the after match press conference. United Manager, McLean, a man who first up, hardly ever smiled or joked and on the occasions when joking didn’t possess the ability to smile WHILE cracking one. During the press conference, the United boss was asked if his team had been on drugs to have performed in such a way against supposed far superior opposition. McLean, flippantly replied that if his players WERE on drugs then he’d be making sure that they’d be taking them again for the second leg out in Rome. Possibly this comment was lost in translation, most likely it was a case of journalists hearing the words coming from McLean and thinking BINGO. A golden quote to base their story around their piece and, who back in Italy will really care, or know, that this wasn’t a case of an opposition coach admitting to rife drug use in the dressing room.

Roma President, Dino Viola, feeling the heat from the Roma ultras, was only too happy to deflect attention away from himself and his team by speaking out in the press that it was also his belief that the Scottish side had been using performance enhancing drugs to beat his team. This was only an entry into the low levels that Viola would stoop to during this semi final between the teams. Then came accusations from some of the Roma players that Jim McLean had called them “Italian Bastards” after the final whistle back in Dundee as the teams left the pitch. Now McLean was not a mild mannered kind of man by any means, so these claims from the Roma players could not have been quickly ruled out, however, due to this orchestrated campaign in the Italian sports papers. the prime motive appearing to be to whip the capital fans into a frenzy before the impending arrival of the drug cheats from Scotland. It seemed to be a convenient claim at the time.

The “racist and drug abusing” Scottish Champions flew into Rome for what would prove to be the most difficult and intimidating game of football they had or ever would experience in their careers. The United players were subject to every trick in the book of the dark arts as far as gaining advantages wherever they were to be found. As is generally accepted when it comes to major football tournaments. It’s in the organisers and sponsors of the competition’s interest for the biggest sides to progress to the final stages of the tournament to maintain maximum interest from the general public. With that, it was no surprise to find UEFA allow the second leg to kick off at the obscenely early time of 3.30 in the afternoon, “coincidentally” the hottest part of the day in the Italian capital. In the build up to the game in Rome, there was an incident where the players food had been tampered with where just as the players were ready to tuck into the bowls of soup that had been laid down for them. The same bowls were frantically removed from the players before they even got the chance to wish each other boun appetito. Unable to leave their hotel due to safety issues and protected by armed guards who’s dogs would bark at all hours, in addition to the cacophony of orchestrated noise from the Roma ultras outside the hotel. The United players started to become a little fearful of their surroundings, especially due to the fact that someone had attempted to poison them.

It would be a valid point to suggest that the Scottish side lost the tie right there in the confines of their hotel rooms. Whatever they were facing pre match would be a light year away from what would greet them at the Stadio Olimpico on the afternoon of the second leg. Due to the campaign waged by the Italian press, the Roma support were to give a Nuremberg Rally’esque firecracker atmosphered welcome to their visitors that day. Not only was this the biggest match in the history of Dundee United. With a place in their first European Cup Final inside their own stadium of all places at stake, it was also Roma’s biggest match in theirs. And with record receipts for a Roma match there was a 68,060 capacity crowd crammed into the stadium whipping itself up into a tinderbox of noise long before kick off. United walked out for their warm up to a wall of noise. With banners displayed by the Commando Ultra Curva Sud group, such as - God Curse Dundee , McLean Fuck Off, Rome Hates McLean and McLean Is A Poof it was clearly apparent that this little side from Scotland had gotten well and truly under the Roman’s skins. During the warm up, the Scottish players had to constantly dodge oranges being thrown from up high in the stands as was told by Paul Sturrock years later, ‘ You can joke about it, but there were hundreds of them, thousands, and they were coming from a fair height, Doddsy (Davie) and I tried to break the ice by playing keepie uppie with them, but it just incensed them further.’

It wasn’t that much of a surprise when United froze in the paradoxically red hot hostile atmosphere that afternoon. This was a club who had already shown many times over that they knew how to either protect a lead on the road or snatch one when required. This was a different, prop completely and nothing like this group of players had experienced. Despite the two goal cushion they never stood a chance, thrown in to this impossible environment. At that point during the game, they simply didn’t realise how “impossible” this job would turn out to be. United themselves as a group, as a team, to be blunt, never turned up on the day. A shadow of themselves, uncharacteristically they went down to a 3-0 defeat that was enough to see the Serie A side take their place in the final. Even through their underperformance, team from Dundee missed a golden chance through talisman Ralph Milne that on any other day he’d have put away in his sleep that would’ve almost certainly taken the Terrors into the final at Roma’s expense. Two first half goals from Roberto Pruzzo and a decisive third by Agostino di Bartolomei was the exact scoreline that was required to send Dundee United out and burst the most outrageous and unthinkable of bubbles. If United thought their ordeal in the baking hot Rome sun was over when the final whistle sounded, the were sadly mistaken.

(A rudimentary degree in Italian will be advantageous as far as this second video goes)

Rather than celebrate the remarkable and amazing comeback that they had just pulled off and celebrate the achievement of reaching the European Cup Final with their thousands of by now, rabid fans, the majority of the AS Roma team made right towards the United bench, specifically for Jim McLean. Intimidating and goading the United Manager as he attempted to make his way from the pitch and to the safety of the dressing room. By the time he got there he was covered in spit from the Roma players and his Assistant Manager, Walter Smith and sub goalkeeper, Gardiner had both been assaulted by players and officials of Roma while they protected McLean on the way back down the tunnel. “It was the first time I’d ever seen the manager upset” said Gardiner “They had obviously identified him as the target and things got out of hand. They were swearing, spitting at him, punching him. It was horrible to see. He was just covered in spit. I’d never seen anything like that towards a manager before and I’ve never seen it since. It was degrading. It was chaos at that point in the tunnel with punches being thrown in all directions. “I wasn’t going to just stand there and let somebody whack me” said the substitute keeper “We threw our own back. It gave the manager a chance to get to the dressing room and clean himself up because it was disgusting that they had done to him, it really was. I don’t know if they would have hurt him, but the pressure they were putting him under was enormous. And, for the life of me I don’t know why they picked him out.” Local broadcaster and journalist, Dick Donnelly, who had covered United matches home and away, years after the tie said ‘ Nobody liked the treatment Jim got that day. The Roma players were intimidating and trying to assault him, some say that they were spitting at him. Things happened that day should not have been allowed to take place on a football field. More than a few “Arabs” celebrated Liverpool’s win in the final’ Donnelly fondly remembered. ‘ No one wanted Roma to win, every Dundee United fan in the city must’ve been wearing a red scarf that evening of the final.’

To dispel the natural assumption that this was nothing more than a natural partizan knee jerk reaction from a set of football fans who simply wanted the team who beat them to also suffer the sting of failure at the high end of the sport. This was the same group of Scottish supporters who only three years later would inspire UEFA to create their “Fair Play Award” due to the sporting behaviour that they had shown inside Tannadice Park towards the players of IFK Goteborg who had beaten United over two legs in the UEFA Cup Final after a 1-1 draw to win the cup 2-1 on aggregate. Rather than celebrate with their small pocket of traveling Swedes, Goteborg performed a lap of honor with the trophy around the Tannadice pitch whilst to a man, every United supporter stood there applauding them. Not an orange in sight.

It was a sickening end to the fairy tale in Rome and one that had threatened to gatecrash its way into the realms of reality for the Scottish representatives in the tournament. United returned back to Dundee both angry at themselves for their evident non appearance in that second leg and a high degree of bitterness over how they had been treated that day in the Stadio Olimpico by their so called hosts. Even after Liverpool had defeated Roma during a penalty shoot out in the final in the Olimpico. There was still more fallout to come from the semi final. Although United themselves never publicly spoke out on the events in Rome. Ernie Walker, Chairman of the Scottish Football Association was ready to speak up for the club at UEFA. Walker expressed his concerns over how scandalously United had been treated whilst taking part in a UEFA tournament. Questions needed asked. Such as why was the game allowed to kick off at the 3.30pm time of the day whilst the first leg had taken place at the much more regular evening time, why did the security inside the Stadio Olimpico who guarded McLean from the moment he arrived at the ground that day go mysteriously missing when the final whistle sounded and 3/4 of the Roma players and officials were hunting him down like an angry mob with torches and pitchforks? Considering this appeal came on behalf of a Scottish side with accusations being cast upon the Italian champions. The request for an investigation unsurprisingly came to nothing. McLean would later say ‘ Walker was convinced an attempt had at least been made to bribe the referee but UEFA brushed his suspicions under the carpet.

Dundee United moved on, for a club like them, one thing would be sure and that was that they would go on to have a shedload more of painful semi final exits as well as a top heavy amount of agonising cup final defeats. Within two years though, the events of that tie against Roma were brought right back to them in the most sinister of ways. Rumours had began to surface that AS Roma President, Dino Viola had attempted to bribe the referee for the second leg, Michel Vautrot. The middle man in the conspiracy to secure a Roma place in the final had confessed to his role in approaching Vautrot. The Frenchman, claimed at the time that he hadn’t taken the bribe offered to him. There was another theory that the same middleman had failed to pass on the £50,000 to the referee and had actually pocketed it himself and told Viola that the deal was done, while praying for a Roma win against Dundee United! This resulted in a questionable 1 year European footballing ban for Viola’s side with the President himself being excluded from all UEFA activities for 4 seasons. Considering how high the stakes were for the right to reach the most vaunted of domestic cup finals, The European Cup. For Roma to be found guilty of attempted match fixing, this punishment was something that sat somewhere between a slap on the wrist and simply just looking at one.

Had this been the behaviour of a team in todays world of football, there’s no doubt that the semi final would have been deemed void and the Dundonians would’ve received the standard 3-0 victory scoreline to take them through to the final. The main flaw in this is that this WASN’T the UEFA way of doing things in those days. Well, that, and the fact that the “attempted” bribery was uncovered long after the final had been played. It was one last twist of the knife in the Dundee side’s back though. Just when they thought they couldn’t despise elements of the Italian side, I say elements as Jim Mclean had a great mutual respect for the Roma coach at the time, the respected Swede Nils Liedholm. When they thought they had found everything to erase AS Roma from their Christmas card list AND then managed to get over things and move on. They then have tales of bribery put in their heads. This Semi Final was just the painful gift that kept on giving. There was no advantage given to United whatsoever over the punishment feted out to the Italian club. No retrospective losers medals for the players in the final that they should have appeared in. No reimbursement of the thousands that the club would have earned for reaching the final.

Like that dead body under the patio that the killer thought would never be discovered as the years passed. 27 years later, Riccardo Viola, son of the now dead ex president, Dino. Gave an explosive interview on Italian TV channel Mediaset Premium where he lifted the lid on the whole story of that semi final in 1984. During an interview he admitted that Roma had bribed Michel Vautrot with a payment of £50,000 to make sure that the second leg went the way of the Italians. Viola said ’Spartan Landini, Genoa Director of Football, came to see my father. He told him that we could get at Vautrot via another friend but that for such a high profile match he would have to be given 100 million lire. During the dinner a waiter went up to the referee saying “Telephone call for Mr Vautrot” This was the pre-arranged signal. Vautrot left the table and when he returned said “My friend, Paulo rang and he sends you his best wishes.” Then I got up, rang my father and told him “Message received.” Viola continued to fess up live on air.

‘All of this was done because we had a difficult game ahead of us against Dundee United, we were two goals down and for us, going out of the competition would have had very serious repercussions’

After how systematically they had been taken apart 1 week before in Dundee by the so called Scottish minnows, there were no guarantees of overturning the two goal deficit in the second leg and Roma knew it. With the final of the competition being in Rome and them being so close to getting there, it was deemed unthinkable that they would not be taking their place in it. The pressure of it all forced Roma down the most despicable of dark roads where rather than try to put their best 11 out on the pitch and see if they were good enough. Indulged in bribery to ensure that whatever happened, they would progress. Despite an AS Roma high ranking official admitting to this perversion of justice. As yet, no retrospective punishment has been handed down to the Roman club who cheated their way to UEFA’s showcase end of season final in front of billions across the world. And considering it was 2011 that Viola confessed on TV to the bribing of Vautrot, no further incriminations will be following.

For what was, not so much a golden generation of players and more, a once in a lifetime collection of footballers it must’ve stung a little to know that no matter how they had played that day in the stifling heat in Rome, it wouldn’t have mattered in the end. Their dreams of playing in what would be for them, and the rest of their careers, the biggest match of their life was a fraud. Had it come down to it that afternoon, it would not be decided on their talent alone as football players. In fact, it DID sting. After the Viola TV interview revelations, Dundee United and Scotland international, Paul Sturrock formally wrote to UEFA President Michel Platini asking him to launch an investigation into the now confirmed corruption that had soured that crucial second leg. I hope the irony wasn’t lost on “Luggy” when he saw the news of Platini being charged with accepting an unsolicited payment recently leading to the termination of his presidency at Nyon, Switzerland. For the record, Sturrock received a reply assuring him that the governing body would look further into these new revelations.

‘If I’m asked, I would like the medals’ said Sturrock after Riccardo Viola had come clean on the matter. ‘I think it would be appropriate if runners up medals were awarded to the players and Platini himself came over to present them’ It would be nice to think that Sturrock was talking tongue in cheek over Platini coming over to present the retrospective medals 30 years later but this was a man hurting over the ultimate chance missed. He continued ‘ I was lucky enough to finish up playing in a World Cup, which was probably the biggest thing in my career but to play in a European Cup Final, with Dundee United. That would have been incredible. I feel unjustly done by.’ If anything, it was in some kind of consolation, a form of closure for all connected with this sorry episode. Any suspicions that may have been harboured by the ex players and officials of Dundee United over what happened that day in the Italian capital at the very least had been realised. It’s easy to empathise with those United players. This was their careers after all and there is no telling how far some of those talented players would’ve went in the game had they qualified for the final, and potentially won what was without debating, Europe’s most sought after club trophy.

Even today, amongst the hardcore Dundee United support, and for those with long memories and who never forget, As Roma is and forever always will be a name synonymous with broken dreams and some rip your radiator right off the wall moments of heartache. The bad guy, the fucking boogie man who stopped you from getting what you most wanted in life when it comes for your football team. It’s why I have a friend who EVERY time Roma plays tweets a good luck message to whatever random team that they’re playing. It’s also why you will never see anyone wearing a replica Roma shirt inside Tannadice Park. Although it has to be noted that for a time, metres across the road inside Dens Park, home of Dundee’s smaller and less successful club, Dundee FC, their supporters have been known to show their respect to the Giallorossi by way of wearing the famous claret shirt in homage to the team that stopped their city rivals from rubbing their noses in things even further in terms of cross city dominance. Already sore from the embarrassment of their City rivals winning their first Premier League title on the last day of the season in their own stadium.

Football has always had it’s share of larger than life, colourful characters, but at times across the world within the beautiful game

and throughout a sport that has eternally had the ability to write as many stories away from the pitch as on it. It hasn’t always just been the players themselves who have courted controversy and made front page headlines as well as on the back. Team coaches and managers themselves have perennially made the news with their wild, eccentric and at times unexplainable conduct in the line of duty when in charge of their side. Through that though it does beg the question just how is a Real Madrid player expected to behave if their own coach is poking a finger in the eye of an opposing manager or, more recently what the Napoli players were to make of their gaffer Maurizio Sarri making homophobic comments towards Internazionale coach Roberto Mancini? Obviously, like in any other company or organization, leading by example is something that is both expected and demanded. What if however if this way of thinking was extended further up the chain PAST the Jose Mourinho’s of today and the Brian Clough's of yesteryear. Going straight to the top of the family tree of any football club is your Chairman or El Presidente. If they can’t be expected to forever be in possession of a moral compass, and if history has taught us one thing, they haven’t, then what chance for your up and coming young striker, or even Doris the tea lady for that matter?

In the UK we have had our fair share of the eccentric and downright badly behaved club owners and Chairmen over the years. You had Lebanese Wimbledon owner, Sam Hammam who was one of the trailblazers in crazy football club Chairmen. A man who had a clause inserted into his manager Bobby Gould’s contract that allowed Hammam to overrule Gould’s team selection anytime prior to 45 minutes til kick off on any match day. Hammam also, after leaving Wimbledon and taking over Cardiff City, had it written into new signing Spencer Priors contract that the centre half would “have to engage in physical relations with a sheep and then eat it’s testicles afterwards” (Where Prior’s agent was during this point of the negotiations is a very pertinent question!) The having sex with a sheep part was soon uncovered as “banter” from Hammam but he DID maintain that if Prior was to pull on the blue shirt of Cardiff for the first time then he would have to go through with the eating it’s cojones part. Apparently, a man of culture, Prior asked to have them cooked and seasoned with salt, parsley and lemon juice. After wincing his way through the ordeal the new signing was then told by a grinning Hammam that it had been chicken all along. In Scotland we had the legendary Jim McLean of Dundee United. Initially team manager and the man who oversaw the era where Dundee United announced themselves onto the European stage reaching European Cup semi finals and Uefa Cup finals respectively. An idol to all Dundee United fans he is remembered for so much during his time as both manager, Director and Chairman of the club. To the outside world with no affinity or links to Dundee’s largest club however, McLean is famous for one thing, well apart from being a football genius and possibly the worlds most belligerent man. Assaulting a BBC match reporter live on air during an interview will do that though.

Asked a question he didn’t quite care for he abruptly ended the interview with a few expletives thrown in as he panelled BBC Scotland’s John Barnes off camera as he left. (No not that one) It was his last act on behalf of the club and the man who was only recorded as having ever smiled 5 times in his 29 years at the club, although 2 of those times may have been down to sun in his eyes, was gone by tea time.

As always, whatever our British clubs can do, the Italians and the Spaniards can do better, with that little bit more style and assurance, and there’s no exception to that rule when it comes to nutter chairmen. In Italy, Perugia probably boasted a copocannoniere winner level club owner in Luciano Gaucci. An eccentric entrepreneur who initially held the position of Vice President at Roma before purchasing the team from Umbria. A club owner of such sane mind to think that it would be perfectly acceptable with the Italian federation for him to sign the best female players in world football. First looking at Swede Hannah Ljungberg before turning his attention to German World Cup winner Brigit Prinz. At the time Gaucci was quoted as saying “Seeing as she’s a citizen of an EU country, I repeat there is no such regulation that would limit her from playing with men.” Despite meeting with Gaucci, Prinz didn’t come to play for Perugia in Serie A in the end! Such nonsense was only the tip of the iceberg for the man who signed Colonel Gaddafi’s son, Saadi, just for the lolz, it certainly wasn’t for his footballing ability as he didn’t play one game for the side before being suspended for Nandrolone. He famously threatened to sack Ang Jung-Hwan after the South Korean international had scored the goal for his country that knocked Italy out of the 2002 World Cup. Following Italy’s exit, a volatile Gaucci was soon in the news, quoted “I have no intention paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian football.” Despite a Gaucci u-turn who had by then offered to give Jung-Hwan a 3 year contract, the South Korean player never returned to Perugia post World Cup.

All of Europe’s more unhinged attention seeking megalomaniac of Chairmen and Presidents pale into insignificance when put up against what is the heavyweight, in every sense of the word, and stick on Ballon d’Or winner for the most colourful, unpredictable and volatile club boss that world football has ever seen. Atletico Madrid President of 15 years, Jesus Gil. To anyone outside Spain he has only ever been recognised for his tempestuous presidency of Madrid’s second club. Inside Spain however he is known for more than just his lunatic like behaviour as President of El Rojiblancos. Construction tycoon right to politician all the way to his infamous stint as the disingenuous mayor of Marbella. Pre Atletico, Gil announced himself to the Spanish public in the most tragic of circumstances. As an entrepreneur he made his fortune in the 60’s building modern gated communities for the Spanish middle class and the foreign residents that had swarmed into Spain. In 1969, on one of Gil’s newly constructed complexes in San Rafael the roof in a restaurant collapsed killing 58 diners and seriously injuring scores more. It was discovered that the cement in the restaurant had not been given enough time to set, following an investigation it was then brought to light that the complex had been constructed without calling on such standard assistance on a project of this scale from either architects or surveyors, or building plans for that matter. It was a shape of things to come for the Spanish public when it came to Jesus Gil and his blatant disregard for what law dictated.

He was sentenced to 5 years as part of the San Rafael tragedy however this was during the rule of General Franco in Spain and having pledged allegiance fervently towards Franco. Gil was handed a pardon by the General himself after only 18 months served. Launching himself back into the redevelopment and property game he ended up in the early 80’s in Marbella heavily buying into the sprucing up of the southern city in a meteoric rise that took him all the way to the mayorship of the city, three times re-elected by the city's residents. Elected in 1991, as mayor he would often be seen out for a stroll about the streets accompanied by a team of bodyguards, Gil verbally abusing the homeless and prostitutes which he felt threatened his vision for the playground for the rich and famous he was trying to create. It was during this era that he formed his own political party, Grupo Independiente Liberal, (Yes, GIL!) a political party that had prospered as a movement and by 1999 had contested 12 other municipalities, as well as Marbella itself. With this running alongside, by then, his position as President of Atletico. Gil very much saw himself as a Spanish version of Milan’s President and Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berluscomi.

Construction deals as well as disasters and political aspirations aside. It was on the football side of things where the real fireworks, fourth of July style fireworks, lay. Despite actually being an Atletico Bilbao supporter, he was close friends with Vicente Calderon, who the stadium is named after today. Through this friendship, Gil saw himself invited onto the Atletico board in 1981. Six years later he was president of the club, and that’s when the real fun and games began. As Socio number 16,386, Gil turned up at Madrid nightclub, Jacara with a bemused Portuguese striker Paulo Futre fresh from his European Cup win with FC Porto, tucked metaphorically under his arm. His message to the Atleti members simply, vote for Gil and you'll see one of Europe's most wanted attackers in the red & white stripes next season.

Gil won the presidency election by over 5 thousand votes and in doing so embarked on a journey that would see the brash and big bellied Spaniard go through an outrageous 44 coaches & signing 141 players over a period of 17 years. This certainly isn't the only example of entrepreneurial spirit taking a businessman to the presidency of a major football club. Florentino Perez across the city swept into power at the Bernabeu while engaging in the same tactic of promising to sign Luis Figo from hated rivals Barcelona should he take power. That is where the similarities between the President of Atleti and Real come to an abrupt end. Then again, in Jesus Gil, the foul mouthed, temperamental multi millionaire who grew up living in a brothel was quite simply beyond comparison with anyone. A man who has abused judges inside court, punched the president of rival club Compostela live on TV. The president who presented his own TV show, Las Noches de Tal y Tal where he would sit in a jaccuzi puffing on cuban cigars surrounded by an assortment of busty models although it should be stated, none as buxom as Gil himself. Someone who didn’t think twice about threatening to feed the Atletico players to his pet crocodile and the same person who ditched the club youth system, citing that there was no point and no money in it only to lose striker Raul to his most bitter of rivals across the city where he became one of the most potent goal scorers modern day football has ever witnessed. Despite never admitting it publicly this one particular move must’ve smarted somewhat because if there was one thing that Gil hated, even more than judges, it was Real Madrid. Over the years, Gil turned baiting Los Blancos into something of an art form. Everything that Gil did, he did it loudly without one single fuck given and never more apparent was this when he had Real Madrid in his sights. No question about it, he was always good value for money and never short in providing a good laugh to the world of football but the question is was he good for Atleti?

Yes and no would be the answer to that question. Through his crooked dealings he, consistently , brought unnecessary and unwanted attention to the club. That together with his numerous fall outs with the Spanish Football Association eventually saw Atleti ostracised and on the occasions where they required help from the FA none would ever be forthcoming. Directly involved in 80 court cases, it was impossible for the club not to be compromised by their larger than life president and his “poor” business decisions. He loved Atletico with a passion though, even if he did on occasion have a funny way of showing it. He admitted to often consulting with his horse, Imperious, on potential player transfers. When he would be left less than satisfied over a final score he had a habit of errupting live on air in ways that would make Kevin Keegan seem like he was the worlds most chilled man during “that” interview years ago on Skysports. On the occasions that Atletico lost a match it was a real life equivalent of the cartoon Wacky Races when it came to the Spanish TV networks and radio stations to get to him first while he was still in the “red zone.” If you got hold of Gil at that point, you knew it was going to be good, if you were brave enough to actually confront him that was.

After a 4-3 loss to Villarreal, and mere days after he had been in hospital to have a new pacemaker fitted, he exploded live on air “It was an absolute disgrace, there’s too many bloody passengers” As Gil let rip, his anger levels rising and rising, a concerned but fearful reporter bravely reminded him about the new pacemaker and suggested to Gil that he might want to relax a little. Incandescent with rage by this point, Gil had Spaniards trying to picture the anatomically impossible with his response to this piece of advice. “I’m sick of people telling me to relax, they can shove my heart up their arses” Unstoppable by this point he wasn’t finished, “Carreras, Santi and Otero are not good enough, I feel like not paying them and anyone who doesn’t like it can die.” The irony in this was that he hadn’t paid ANYONE at the club for 2 months. Something that was confirmed by Otero when asked by reporters for his thoughts on what Gil had said about him not being good enough and that he wasn’t going to pay him. “Does that include the two months that he already owes us?”

Always quick to criticise the side he was equally as quick to celebrate the good times. When Atletico stunned the nation and specifically the big two of Barca & Real by winning the domestic double of La Liga and Copa Del Rey. Gil celebrated this by riding around Madrid on an elephant, as you do. These are some of the things he did do but the things that he didn’t quite carry out? Every bit as crazy. The Formula one team, the aircraft carrier that he wanted to sit at Marbella harbour. Probably for the best, one of his other wishes that didn’t come to fruition was when, during another of his infamous radio interviews after an away defeat at Las Palmas, he expressed the wish that the Atleti plane would crash on the way back to Madrid and kill the whole team!

His unpredictable and abrasive behaviour was always just put down to the fact it was Jesus Gil, and that’s just how he was and he wasn't ever going to change. It was the incessant court cases which brought him down eventually where even Gil himself admitted that he was hurting the club. No stranger to the inside of a court room, he was forced to resign as Mayor of Marbella in 2002 following embezzlement accusations. With €390m euros of council funds discovered as not being fully accounted for he resigned and was put in prison for the third time in his life. Imprisoned to prevent him from tampering with evidence that would go on to be crucial to the case built up against him. Also during his stint as Mayor, over €30m euros had been “misappropriated” from the municipal pot in what the Spanish press dubbed “the football shirts case” where at the time Atletico were sponsored, conveniently, by the city of Marbella. Even as Gil died from a heart attack in May, 2004, aged 71, the “Caso Atletico” court case was reaching it’s final proceedings. The by then, ex Atletico President, accused of illegally helping himself to 236,056 Atleti shares as part of a floatation that as club president, a venture that he had overseen.

He was loved and loathed not just over the whole of Spain but within the stands and corridors of the Vincente Calderon. Despite the mixed emotions towards a man that always played by his own rules and wasn’t against cheating when the need arose. The feeling of loss was all too evident as Atletico Madrid took to the field against Zaragoza. Fittingly, in tribute to Gil, the Riojablancos didn’t mark the game by winning but by losing. For a team who have embraced the tag of eternal victims, a football club who’s very own hymn contains the line “What a way to suffer, what a way to lose” To do anything other than lose on such an occasion simply wouldn’t have been Atletico Madrid. After days in hospital, Gil’s heart finally gave up on him. His coffin was wrapped in an Atletico flag as it was lowered to the ground. Then Mr Atletico and his curmudgeonly ways was gone. There's no denying that Spanish football has been a lot quieter and much less colorful as a consequence.